Don't stop fighting the FDA deeming regulations and EU TPD!

Just a week or so after the Royal College of Physicians released their report backing e-cigarettes and vaping, urging governments and regulators to "Promote e-cigarettes widely as substitute for smoking", the EU Court of Justice ruled that the TPD is valid, will be enforced and thereby making sure that the EU will not follow RCP's advice. Yesterday, just a couple of days later, the FDA released their new deeming regulations that basically will ban vaping as we know it in the US and hand the remains of the market over to Big Tobacco. Since I read about it yesterday, an image has been developing in my head of the ANTZ holding the arms of a guy called "Smoker" or "public health" on his back while Big Pharma commands the EU and FDA to take turns punching him in the face. Big tobacco stands on the side with a big grin on his face, cheering and rubbing his hands. Any cartoonists reading this... feel free to draw it up and publish it widely. The last days, the EU and the FDA has shown us very clearly that this is not about health at all, it's all about the money. Either that, or their incompetence have reached levels I did not think was possible for human beings. I'm not sure which one is most frightening.

A lot of people have commented on the two cases, which are indeed public health disasters bordering to political genocide, so I'm not going to go into the details on how these draconian regulations will shorten the lives of millions. However, I've found some good posts and articles for you below. I've written about the consequences of over regulating earlier and Clive Bates have summed up the unintended consequences of these regulations: Harmful and negligent to ignore unintended consequences of e-cigarette policies

On the TPD:

• The EU’s new rules for vapers: this is Brussels at its most petty and pointless (Christopher Snowden in the Spectator Health)
• Regulators and the compliance fallacy – buying 99% nicotine e-liquid from China (Clive Bates)
• What is wrong with the Tobacco Products Directive for vapour products? (Clive Bates) 
• Health? Yeah, Right (Dick Puddlecote)

On the FDA deeming regulations:

• FDA deeming regulation on e-cigarettes: an effective ban on most (and on most effective) products (Dr. Farsalinos)
• The FDA’s Vaporous Thinking About E-Cigs (Wall Street Journal)
• FDA E-Cigarette Deeming Regulations are a Disaster for Public Health (Michael Siegel)

It doesn't look very good for vaping right now I have to admit. Well, actually, for the lucky ones that have already made the switch it's not the end of the world. We've known about this, and expected these regulations for a while now and most of us will be able to continue vaping. It might mean that we have to turn to the thriving black market that undoubtedly will rise and shine brightly now, but we'll manage. For current smokers and future generations however, this last week has been a complete disaster. The regulations will cost a lot of people a lot of years of living, but who cares? I mean they never new that their governments deprived them of a better life so they won't be complaining about that right? Well, that's were we as vapers should prove the EU and the FDA wrong. We need to make sure that everyone knows what has been going on. We need to make sure that future generations will grow up knowing that we put an end to the tobacco epidemic. And we need to make sure the heads start rolling in certain organisations. Because they will, eventually, if we manage to expose to the world what their real motives are. A great way to start helping out is to support and promote Aaron Biebert's upcoming documentary "A billion lives". Sign up for their newsletter, pay attention to their facebook page, and start mentioning their movie everywhere where vaping or e-cigarettes are the topic of discussion. The EU and the FDA have now thrown a couple of hard punches our way, but there is no reason to give up now. This gives us even more reason to fight on, or start fighting if you're not there yet! "The tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds"... and we'll grow through concrete and break their castles apart I might add.