MEP Nikki Sinclaire will tomorrow join a number of MEP’s in
delivering a letter on behalf of E-Cigarette users across the European Union.
The We Demand a Referendum Now MEP has been vocal in her
opposition to an EU Ecigarette ban, and a video she produced for Youtube on the
subject has had over3000 views.
The EU, as part of its Tobacco Directive, seeks to class
e-cigarettes as a medicinal product. Some E-cigarette users fear that the tests
these products will need to go through will effectively price them out of the
market.
We Demand a Referendum Now MEP Nikki Sinclaire said,
“Users of E-cigarettes have contacted me in their thousands.
This community, known as vapers, have been calling for MEP’s to block this new
legislation as they believe that it will be detrimental to the people who
choose to use them”.
The proposed EU tobacco directive aims to make smoking, in
all its forms, less attractive to young people in order to discourage them from
taking it up. The draft EU tobacco directive seeks to ban e-cigarettes.
The electronic cigarette market in Europe last year was
worth 400-500 million Euros. In the UK by the end of 2013, almost one million
people will be using electronic cigarettes or will have tried them.
Updated regulations regarding tobacco products would ban
anything with a nicotine level of over 4mg per ml being sold unless it was officially
licensed as medicinal. Stop smoking products, such as patches, fall within
existing rules and would remain unaffected.
If these measures are agreed, they would need to pass
through the long process where drugs are certified. Processes such as these can
be very experience and put into question the commercial viability of
E-cigarettes.
Nikki added, “If we take a step back, shouldn’t we be asking
who should be making the rules. Is it up to the European Parliament in Brussels
to decide, or our elected Parliament in Westminster?
It seems funny MEPs get to make the decision on this issue,
when MEPs themselves are allowed to smoke in bars in the Parliament.
Laws that have an effect on the people of the UK should be
passed by our MPs.
This is simply another example of why we need a referendum ”