Vapers encouraged to lobby MEPs

SKYCIG, a UK electronic cigarette provider, has set up a website to help vapers write to their MEPs (members of the European Parliament) and oppose proposed changes to the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).

One of the European Commission’s proposed changes to the TPD would effectively emasculate the electronic cigarettes now on sale in the EU and encourage the users of these products to return to consuming traditional cigarettes.

In a statement issued through PRNewswire, SKYCIG, which is a member of the ECITA (Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association), said that the UK’s MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) recently announced its intention to have electronic cigarettes classified as medicinal products and to require them to be licensed by 2016: similar proposals to those put forward by the Commission.

SKYCIG said that these strict MHRA regulations would make electronic cigarettes more difficult for users to access than their ‘undisputedly more harmful counterparts, traditional cigarettes’.

But it pointed out that the most industry operators believed that, in the long term, revisions to the EU’s TPD would take precedence over the MHRA announcement – and hence the focus on MEPs.

“As an ECITA member, SKYCIG firmly oppose the views of MHRA and feel that this is an unjustifiable restriction on a product which has the potential to save lives as an alternative to traditional cigarettes,” said Douglas Mutter, operations manager, SKYCIG. “This campaign will hopefully bring some common sense to the debate and encourage better enforcement of current regulations without the need for unnecessary medical classification,” he added.

SKYCIG’s dedicated ‘write to your MEP’ webpage is at http://www.skycig.co.uk/ecita.