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THE ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE was being pushed centre stage this week, ahead of today’s ‘World No Tobacco Day’.
Doctors and policy experts have urged the UN’s health agency to embrace the gadget as a life saver.
With tobacco smoke claiming a life every six seconds, the tar-free, electronic alternative could help prevent much of the cancer, heart and lung disease and strokes caused by the toxins in traditional cigarettes, the 50-odd experts wrote to World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan.
E-cigarettes “could be among the most significant health innovations of the 21st century, perhaps saving hundreds of millions of lives,” the group said.
They urged “courageous leadership” from the WHO in guiding global and national approaches to e-cigarettes, which are banned in some countries like Brazil and Singapore and face increasingly strict restrictions in other countries, amid uncertainty about their long-term health effects.
In Ireland, Health Minister James Reilly confirmed earlier this year that their sale to under-18s was to be made illegal, while they’ve also been banned on Irish Rail services. Further regulations are also expected.
Experts
The group of experts fears the WHO plans to lump the battery-powered devices, which release nicotine in a vapour instead of smoke and contain fewer toxins, with traditional cigarettes under its tobacco control policy.
This would compel member countries to ban advertising and use of the gadgets in public places, and to impose sin taxes.
“It would be unethical and harmful to inhibit the option to switch to tobacco harm-reduction products” like e-cigarettes, said the letter.
The WHO is working on recommendations for e-cigarette regulation, to be presented to a meeting of member governments in October.
But it does so in a scientific vacuum on the device’s long-term safety and its true value as an aid to kicking the tobacco habit.
Some fear its use and often unrestricted promotion could glamorise an addictive habit, and hook non-smoking teenagers on nicotine.
Tar kills
An estimated seven million people in Europe alone use e-cigarettes, invented in China in 2003.
Addiction specialist Gerry Stimson, an emeritus professor at University College London who co-signed the letter to Chan, said they have been shown to release “very, very fractional levels” of toxins compared to conventional ones.
“People smoke for the nicotine and die of the tar,” he told AFP in Paris.
If you separate the nicotine from the burning of vegetable matter… people can still use nicotine but they’re not going to die from smoking.
If it listed e-cigarettes as a tobacco product, the WHO would “preserve the position of cigarettes because it makes it harder or more difficult or less desirable to use e-cigarettes,” he argued.
The group of epidemiologists, oncologists, addiction experts and health policy specialists who signed the letter included Nigel Gray, a member of the WHO’s special advisory committee on tobacco regulation, Michel Kazatchkine, a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and a “harm reduction” advocate, and African Medical Association president Kgosi Letlape.
-AFP. Additional reporting, Daragh Brophy.
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Brexit: We want to leave the EU and have a hard birder with Europe.
Also Brexit: wait…other countries have borders with us? And hard borders work both ways? Won’t somebody work with us so we can go on holidays.
It’s what the great British people voted for Brexit? Why are they upset?
They really are so self absorbed and deluded, that they expect to be accommodated at every juncture by the EU, while they are simultaneously taking a dump all over the Brexit withdrawal agreement and specifically the protocol which they themselves put forward, instead of the original backstop that they had also previously agreed to.
While continuously belittling the impacts of Brexit on Northern Ireland, the island of Ireland and cross border trade, as was and is being highlighted by others.
@David Van-Standen: That would be their sense of colonial entitlement, the penny still hasn’t dropped.
Dear Britain,
Stop blaming everyone else for your bad decisions and allowing your voters to be conned by English nationalists, trying to reignite a dead empire.
Brexit ! Brexit ! Brexit !
Fooled Britannia
Kind regards
Chris
@Chris Curran: The Tory Manifesto since 2016 is Brexit consequences are everyone else’s fault.
“You choose your leaders and place your trust, you’ve made your bed you better lie in it.”
@Paul Gregg: great tune
@Paul Gregg: Yes For 6 hours in The Car
Well done Borris
Tory leadership hopeful Truss said: “This awful situation should have been entirely avoidable and is unacceptable.“
That’s true Liz, but you didn’t want to avoid Brexit, and yet this is what it looks like. Can’t have it both ways.
@Type17: Trouble is she did want to avoid brexit. She campaigned to remain during the referendum!
@halfmanhalftea: The power-base in the Conservative party has swung far to the right in recent years, and all of the moderates (eg: Ken Clarke and similar) have been sidelined – anyone who is a member of the current cabinet is definitely a hard brexiteer, regardless of their pre-referendum stance.
Britain were the ones insisting that everybody entering and leaving should have their passports stamped post Brexit. Obviously this was going to create huge extra work at border control. Why should France (or anyone else) bear the cost of hiring and training additional staff to implement a UK rule? They voted for it so just suck it up.
@Paul Shepherd: exactly, France be fools to plow in millions to increase boarder check capacity for a third country for choosing to have the boarders
@Paul Shepherd: Exactly, they didn’t have to make life harder for other but they left it to their politicians who did it. Now the same parties are getting complaints that are entirely of their own making. The only sound people in this are the groups that have been through this personally and are turning up with sandwiches for the drivers.
@John Joseph Barry: They can’t even if they want to. The facility is in Dover and the UK decided not to spend the money to increase the capacity for the French to work in.
Sounds like a border protocol is needed
Ha ha this is classic ..go on the french they don’t give a f#€k
Own your brexit England now over to you Spain block up passport control with one young fella on the non EU line…brexit means brexit after all..
@David cotter: unfortunately the lines are for “EU and UK” passengers but when I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago they fast tracked the Irish. Gracias!
@Mattress Dick: Same in the Netherlands, they made a new line for us and opened a passport control booth. (had kids so couldn’t scan through)
I know I shouldnt laugh but this is priceless
They have some nerve to blame others for the consequences of their own actions.
Panic at the Tunnel. Bumper to bumper. Wait a minute! Where’s me jumper?
@Alex Marquis: I remember at the time I. The UK people asking what’s a ‘Jumper’?
anyone feel sorry for them ha ha
#takingbackcontrol
The law of unintended consequences comes to mind. They voted to leave Europe and expected everything to stay the same.
@Ronnie Smith: And they still want to go to Europe on holidays. I thought people chose to go on places that are better than home. Oh wait….
When Liz Truss gets into the top job and the border is back in Ireland! Then will the DUP complain that that everyone’s passport has to be looked at? Brexit!!!
These must be the sunlit uplands where no British people need passports, it’s for their own good (sarcasm). I bet all the local radio stations are playing “Hotel California”.
Love the French officials tweet on this :) (Not my problem…)
“The French authorities recall that the fluidity of flows at the port of Dover is the joint responsibility of a set of players, including in particular the shipping companies, the port of Dover and the British authorities. They will continue to work closely with all of them in order to manage the exceptional flows expected in the days to come in the most efficient way.”
https://twitter.com/prefet59/status/1550478680035565569?cxt=HHwWgoCxtaGJtIQrAAAA
This is why the world isn’t ready for electric cars. Imagine all those vehicles running out of charge one after another….
@Liz O’Neill: Best comment!
“ we left your club, reneged on agreements made in process, no longer pay membership dues. But why are you treating us differently now???”.
Oh please, donnez-moi un break https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1550576820814286848/photo/1
@Felicity Rawson: So a self inflicted foot shooting incident.
I hope the French open a fast track EU passport lane.
Chaos, stuck in your car for hours in England, nothing to do with Brexit. It is France ruining your holiday
@John Kelly: not so. Its the port of Dover which before brexit wasn’t fit for purpose and now with brexit is a total calamity. Maximum passport controls at Dover for the French under 10. If you were ever in Dover you would know that. On the opposite side in Calais a whole new port. Nowhere near the delays as up to 30 passport booths are available which are never required as this port is properly managed. Problem no. 1 Dover. Problem no. 2 brexit. The French are not on the problem list yet.
@John Kelly: Oh dear, quelle horreur!
That’s nothing. I queued for 2hrs yesterday with two young kids to pay €2 for 10 seconds on a slide in Avondale. That’s torture.
Thanks for the reminder, I’m dying to try that slide in Avondale myself, when it’s less busy.
It’s back to that classic newspaper headline from years ago – FOG IN THE CHANNEL, EUROPE CUT OFF’!
Before Brexit hardly any controls and no holdups at Calais. After Brexit British insisting the French invest in improving and speeding up their control systems..
WHY should they ?..
No point in Blaming the EU… Brixit is the cause of your problems and you voted for it…plain and simple
Borriss lies coming Home to ROOST
France had all their booths full. Dover too small but blame the EU.
Actions have consequences:
https://www.ft.com/content/2a6662a0-975e-4bcd-9f5b-e241256db4df
It would be interesting to do a survey on how many people waiting in their cars voted for Brexshit…
Pay France to do pre-Clearance in the UK. No point having a lovely tunnel if you can’t sort the paperwork.
They were told what would happen i small little words and drawing some in crayon to keep it simple, what would happen.
They ignored all of that and sang Rule Britannia and talked about the good old days. When they ruled the world and people treated them properly.
Now they are treated by the rest of the world the way they deserve and they do not like it at all.
A bit unfair because there are some of the most wonderful people ever who will be badly affected by this.
However, to the ones that voted for it, enjoy it as you made it and you own it.
We took enough of their lies and more and who can blame us for laughing our heads off at them.
They can of course come to Ireland without all that hassle. We will take their money no problem.
Welcome to the Costa Banna Strand that the Costa del Sol
So, the UK are again blaming everyone else for their f<$#% ups? Wow, they chose to go back to the dark ages, passport controls are a by-productof Brexit. Duh!!! Don't blame the French, the Brits chose and now that doesn't suit them, the chaos is of their own making. Suck it up…
Like that’s a new thing. It could have been worse. They could have spent hours trapped on a hot smelly car deck of a ferry waiting to offload at the French side? Then they would howl!!
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