After the Referendum: How UK Vapers Will Win In Parliament

After the Referendum: How Vapers Will Win In Parliament

Abzed.com

24 Jun 2016 — Britain has chosen a new future in which every regulation will ultimately be decided by our Parliament in Westminster. The negotiations for untangling EU Directives will be by a new Prime Minister and be lengthy. There are a huge number of measures which she or he will be asked to change.

Our concern is to ensure that the Tobacco Products Directive is high up the list of things that MPs are pressing the new Prime Minister to tackle first. In short we need to be the squeaky wheel that makes the most noise.

We have great strengths on our side:

Firstly vapers have become a political force. There are 2.8 million vapers and the polling we conducted before the referendum showed your anger about the TPD.

Secondly we have strong arguments for being prioritised. Most of the TPD’s most harmful measures have yet to be implemented. If the government were to seek to go ahead with enforcing EU measures like the ban on stronger nicotine e-cigarettes it would create outrage.

Since Parliament is now in charge, this petition for Parliamentary action has become even more appropriate. Please keep encouraging your friends and family to sign it.

For the same reason vapers should renew their focus on lobbying their MPs. We suggest that you ask to meet your MP at their constituency surgery as soon as possible to help them understand the needs of the 4,300 vapers they represent.

A key date for your diary is Monday 4 July when there will be a major debate on vaping in the House of Lords led by Lord Callanan.

After discussions with vaping activist groups we are recommending that on this day vapers turn up at Parliament to firstly lobby their MP at the House of Commons and then to view the House of Lords debate from the public gallery at 7pm. At the end of the debate there will be a vote on a “regret” motion which the government could lose. So July 4 is your VIP day - the day of Vapers In Parliament.

More details will follow to help turn this into an exciting and important day for large numbers of vapers.

 

From ChurnMag.com

Daily Mail Argues Vaping Is Better Than Smoking

In today’s world, six million people around the world die each year from tobacco-related causes. The number is shocking, considering all the evidence the public has about the dangers of tobacco and traditional cigarettes and the public health push to prevent people from smoking and all the smoking cessation alternatives that exist. And in poorer countries, the casualty rate from tobacco is even higher because of less stringent tobacco policies and little to no support for smokers who want to quit.

But what if vaping can save lives? Recent studies seem to support the idea that if smokers have access to vaping, they can quit traditional cigarettes with more ease and won’t return to smoking. Studies also show that there are fewer risks involved with vaping than with smoking.

It seems the jury is still out on vaping.

However, public opinion is showing a move towards society’s acceptance that vaping is better — and healthier — than smoking. One of the largest supporters now comes in the form of a news organization.
The Daily Mail, a UK-based newspaper, released an article for its The Conversation column this weekend that talks about vaping and what it means for modern society. The article is written by Marcus Munafo, a professor of psychology at the University of Bristol, and covers the scientific reasons why vaping is not as harmful as smoking.

Munafo makes the important point that vaping is different from smoking. He explains that vaping delivers nicotine by heating propylene glycol, an e-liquid that contains nicotine, which turns into vapor. That vapor is inhaled, which is where the term vaping originally came from.

This means that e-liquids are a simpler way for vapers to get nicotine. Cigarettes and other tobacco products have hundreds of chemicals and carcinogens along with nicotine, most of which are dangerous to human health, so it can seem like common sense to view vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking.
But the science goes deeper than that. A recent study done to investigate the impact vaping has on human heart cells, known as endothelial cells, proved something amazing — traditional cigarettes had a negative impact on these cells while vaping had no effect on cells at all. While this is just one study on vaping and the human heart, the results are considered to be a valid reason to debate whether or not vaping should be universally accepted.

Public health advocates and anti-vaping policy makers aren’t giving up without a fight. They claim that there is not enough scientific research to claim, with any sort of confident conclusion, that vaping is healthier than smoking. Other critics claim that vaping is getting children hooked on nicotine, leading to younger generations moving from vaping to smoking rather than not smoking traditional cigarettes at all.

While the debate rages on about vaping and whether or not it should be banned, vapers are adding their voices to the choir that argues for common sense regulations for the industry. These vapers tend to be former smokers who are passionate about having the ability to decide for themselves how to quit.
Because most vapers are former smokers who have laddered down their nicotine levels with vaping, the vaping industry stands firm in its belief that removing vaping from public use will create even more smokers, leading to more deaths every year.

For now, more evidence and scientific study will be needed to truly understand vaping and its advantages and disadvantages. However, with the support of large news companies like the Daily Mail, it seems that public opinion is more inviting to learning how vaping can positively affect smokers’ lives.

 

But it is a timely public media statement before the parliamentary debate next week