Morning has broken...

Morning has broken... by leecolgate at Garmin Connect - Details

..and I haven't!  So, I didn't quite get up and go this morning, but I did at least get up.  Sparing details, curry the night before a run is not conducive to making a prompt exit!!!

Still, after 45 minutes yesterday, I did 30 this morning (eventually) and again it was quite easy.  And now, a plea for help.

I am now smoke-free, and so are my entire family and a lot of our friends, thanks to the amazing Tornado Tank vaper.  This an absolutely genius product (there are lots of choices, too), which no tobacco or drugs company would ever have come up with.  It's available with a simply enormous range of different flavour products, in different nicotine strengths.  Perhaps somewhat inevitably, there are now plans to have them regulated as medical products, killing off all innovation, probably the flavour choices, and definitely the majority of the fluid strengths.  We must stop this.  This page has details of the plans afoot in the UK and Europe and what to do about it.  Please read and take action, whether you're a current or future user or just someone with an interest in consumer choice and, perhaps, smoking friends you would hope would convert in the future.  This is so important.

http://www.totallywicked-eliquid.com/forum/call-to-action/call-to-action/

I am reproducing below the letter I wrote, so it's a simple copy and paste job (with editing if you like).

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms at plans to re-categorise e-cigarettes and similar products as medical products, and restrict the options available to current and future users with regards both to the fluids to be used with these products and the electronic products themselves.

As a consumer, I have chosen to use these products as an alternative to cigarettes.  As a result, I am no longer consuming all the thousands of other harmful compounds found in traditional tobacco products, nor am I afflicting anyone around me with the effects of 'second hand smoke'.  I have seen tremendous benefits to my health already, and am cutting down the amount of nicotine I consume as well by progressive moving to weaker fluids.  All this while enjoying a variety of flavours that tobacco cannot replicate, and drug companies lack the imagination or incentive to offer.

In my particular case, this follows years of trying and failing to give up cigarette use, using all the NRT products available on the market, and pharmaceutical alternatives including Zyban.  Following  my success, after so many years of failure, my entire family has now successfully made the change and they have in turn converted a number of their friends and colleagues, too.

These products are clearly preferable to cigarettes, which are not categorised as medicinal, nor regulated in any way other than being age-restricted.  As a consumer, I am well aware of the health issues that consuming nicotine, even without the other harmful chemicals present in tobacco, poses.  This is an informed choice and not one in which governmental or health agency interference is appropriate or desirable.

You need to fully justify your current plans, or drop any ongoing work in removing my freedom of choice and imposing my return to smoking cigarettes, or using products which have proven in the past to be completely ineffective in supporting my smoking cessation.  As an immediate response, I require you to answer the following questions, within 20 days, as stipulated in the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

• When will the evidence gathering exercise for MLX364 be completed, and when will the MHRA announce their decision regarding regulating electronic cigarettes as a medicine?
• Please provide a summary of the legal advice the MHRA have obtained regarding this regulation - especially in respects to the NCP’s (nicotine containing products) that “appreciably affect metabolism”, and why this would draw them into the medicines legislation.
• Please explain why tobacco cigarettes, being NCP’s are not considered alongside electronic cigarettes as medicinal.
• If tobacco cigarettes are not medicinal, please point out where this legislation is, in regards to them being NCPs.
• In your terms of reference of March 2011, the MHRA were to provide further scientific and market research on the physiological effects of nicotine and the impact of regulation on business and consumers. Please confirm this is underway, and when you expect this to conclude.
• Please let me know how you have made your impact assessment on the effects of regulation for the business’s and consumers, and that you can pursue your objective in the least burdensome manner toward them.
• Please confirm to what regard is the MHRA having toward the EU tobacco product directive when making its decisions re the regulation of NCP as medicines

I strongly fear and suspect that the main issue those who object to these products have, is that neither big tobacco, nor the drugs companies, nor the government is currently benefiting from these innovative products, which are having a clearly beneficial impact for so many.  Only satisfactory responses to these questions and the wider moral one of whether anyone has the right to restrict consumer choice in this area, will do anything to change my perception.

I thank you.

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