Norwegian government pretends to care... but wants implement TPD

Earlier today I wrote that Norwegian government parties Høyre and FRP wants to allow e-cigarettes containing nicotine. With big words FRP proudly announces they want to allow this and facilitate product availability to give smokers a healthier alternative, one that will not kill them. A bit later the consultative document was released on the government webpage. This is in Norwegian of course, don't know how good google's translation will be, but I'm sure many of you recognise this: 2014/40/EF (or 2014/40/EU). Yes.... it is the EU TPD.

I said earlier today that I felt weird to see a representative from FRP make so much sense. Once I wrote that I had a gut feeling this all sounded a bit too good to be true. My gut was right. This is nothing more than the Norwegian government preparing to implement the draconian and deadly TPD. Høyre and FRP is merely trying to score some points among vapers, trying to make it look like they actually care about public health, when in fact they're jumping when they EU say they should and effectively try to eradicate vaping as we know it. The result is that they are sacrificing lives to avoid the wrath of their EU gods. There are two possible explanations to why: Either they're to weak and cowardly to stand up to the EU, or they're to lazy to do their job and actually read a word or two about what vaping is all about. I'm not sure what I think is more scary.

This morning I felt a bit optimistic. I should have known better. Norwegian vapers now face the same deadly regulations as the rest of Europe. Still, not all hope is lost. There are still people fighting the TPD, both in Norway and the rest of Europe. It's pretty clear from what we saw today that the Norwegian government intends to implement the TPD, so I urge Norwegian vapers to engage in this fight as well as working to educate the Norwegian politicians, making them understand that the EU is on the wrong path here. It's not very surprising, but still disappointing, that our government intends to implement the TPD. There's a lot of good work going on in the vaping community ... we'll just have to keep it up and hope for the best.