The Norwegian Institute of Public Health censored their own top researchers

Last week I wrote that the TPD and plain packaging passed in the Norwegian parliament. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health, NIPH, played an important role in this, not only through their response to the public consultation prior to the vote, but also through their reports on e-cigarettes (which I've written about before) and their statements during a committee hearing in October this year. Now, some of NIPH's own researchers reveals that important information was held back during this committee hearing, and hence the members of parliament, that voted in favour of the new tobacco act, had inadequate information. Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet has gained access to emails showing this and they've talked to Erik Nord and Karl Erik Lund about it. This was published in an article last week (sadly behind a paywall).

Erik Nord

Karl Erik Lund

"NIPH handled this case in a way that Karl Erik Lund's and my own views on e-cigarettes were never submitted to the Committee. (...) This was in my opinion contrary to the general desire for the best possible  information on the case, and disloyal to the parliamentary committee on health and care services", writes FHI researcher Erik Nord in an email exchange Dagbladet has accessed.

Both Nord and Lund have argued that what we know about relative harm and usage patterns strongly suggests that a strict policy on e-cigarettes can lead to loss of a lot of lives. They wanted to get this view across to the committee, but instead their calculations and summary on the research done on e-cigarettes were omitted when NIPH held their presentation to the parliamentary committee.

Nord directs harsh criticism towards the leaders of NIPH that he in this case says are driven by a wish to satisfy the politicians instead of a wish to objectively impart knowledge. Nord and Lund both have their background from the The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research, SIRUS, that earlier this year was merged with NIPH. SIRUS researchers then expressed concerns that they risked loosing their freedom, credibility and freedom of speech as NIPH has a less independent role compared to SIRUS. It looks to me that they had a very good reason to worry. The two institutes have often disagreed publicly for several years in different questions, for example the use of snus. Karl Erik Lund have been a strong supporter of harm reduction through both snus and e-cigarettes and have expressed this publicly a lot of times while he was Research Director at SIRUS, and I'm happy to see he and his colleagues from old SIRUS still puts ethics and science above satisfying egocentric politicians.

This is not the first time Lund and Nord have ended up in this situation after the SIRUS/NIPH merge. They also wrote a report contradicting Minister of Health, Bent Høie's views on plain packaging. Despite that an article in newspaper VG revealed that this report was ignored and left out of the background material when the proposed changes to the tobacco act was written, nothing was done. The Australian lies fit Høie's agenda better, so they kept those instead.

"After the VG article about snus packaging some time ago I sent out an email about a crisis of confidence in the NIPH. In a meeting immediately afterwards Camilla (NIPH director Camilla Stoltenberg, ed note) asked what was needed to restore confidence. I have since pointed out that action, not words, is needed. The handling of this case was the opposite of what is needed", Nord write in his email.

Talking to Dagbladet Nord estimates that between two and three thousand Norwegian smoker will die prematurely as a direct consequence of a strict e-cigarette policy. "This is the reality that the politicians will have to expect", says Nord.

"When the health care committee requests to be presented with the different views, it is natural to do so. Instead the area director chose to give a kind of unified presentation where our calculation was completely gone", he explains to Dagbladet.

In an email that Dagbladet has read, Nord writes that NIPH in some cases obviously has "issues dealing with its dual role as a research / information provider on one hand and advisor on the other, and that it's leaders unfortunately sometimes ends up being political actors".

Area director Knut-Inge Klepp have been publicly sceptical to e-cigarettes all along. This also goes for NIPH director Camilla Stoltenberg, and that suits Bent Høies agenda quite nicely. Lund and Nord research and views on the other hand, doesn't fit this agenda at all. So one can only wonder... why did they decide to merge SIRUS and NIPH?

Klepp, of course, does not agree with Lund and Nord and says: "I disagree that we in any way attempted to withhold information. We have been completely open that there is scientific disagreement within the institute" What a load of crap. What he's actually saying is that they admit that their researchers (the people that actually know something about this) does not agree with the leadership, but they chose not to present their views anyway. Why? Because they've found other science that fits the politicians agenda better?

He then goes on with the usual "there is not much research done on the consequences of e-cigarettes and a fresh survey from the USA supports a stricter policy than Nord and Lund wants", and goes on:

The math is interesting. There is uncertainty about the numbers just as there is uncertainty about much of the knowledge about e-cigarettes. Here we get new results every week, and I think that it is wise not to be too firm, but monitor research on health effects both in Norway and internationally closely in the future. 

I'm not sure what to say to that? "Blah, blah, blah" might be fitting? There is a lot of research available, just not much supporting the views and agenda of Klepp and whatever politician he thinks he needs to satisfy to keep his job. Klepp goes on:

(...) It is not a problem that it appears there is scientific disagreement within such a large institute, but rather a strength. The challenge is of course that we can use the controversy to develop good research that can bring us results in this field.

More empty words from Klepp there. The research is already there, from researchers at his own institute among others. Still he was the one that chose to omit it when presenting what was supposed to be all the views and research to the committee, depriving them of the ability to make well informed decision.

Then again, would it really have mattered if Lund and Nord had been able to get their views across, telling the committee the real consequences of their actions? Apparently not. Tove Karoline Knutsen (Norwegian Labor party, AP) says that the committee members are well aware of the views of Lund and Nord but still:

Of curse we listen carefully both to NIPH and others, but for Labour it is also important to proceed somewhat incremental in cases where there is so little research as in this case, and in any case ensure that we don't do something that is irreversible. If at some point we get far more knowledge our view can be revised, but I think it is important now that we treat e-cigarettes as regular tobacco with the same restrictions, if they are primarily intended to be a tool for smoking cessation.

I get the feeling you've listened a lot to NIPH, and paid extra attention to Klepp's way of ignoring science. What really is irreversible is the damage done by the new tobacco act. Pigs will learn to fly before Norway removes or changes a law that complies with the EU TPD.

Last week I tried to figure out what motives the Minister of Health and his department have for doing this, even though they have to know by now that they will slow down the accelerating decrease in tobacco smoking. Here's a scary thought: What if that is exactly what they want? Why? From a purely egocentric point of view, just thinking of their own political life it makes sense though. Because no matter how poorly their plain packaging works, smoking rates will continue to decline. The Australian government have demonstrated how, by some simple statistical tinkering, they can make it look like this has worked. That looks great in a political campaign. Same thing with e-cigarettes, even if they manage to slow down progress, which will result in less lives saved, e-cigarette use will slowly become more visible and mainstream, and they can say that "hey, we legalized e-cigs... and have a look at our statistics now. Smoking is declining." (Which it would have done anyway, of course). What's even better from their point of view is that if the decrease in smoking is slow enough, they can continue to make up useless provisions to score political points for years to come as well.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has become the government's tool to deceive the public, making us believe that they're doing a great job for public health. As we've seen they are willing to go pretty far to do this, even censor their own top researchers if their research show the "wrong" results. We can only hope that Lund, Nord and the other researchers from SIRUS will create such hell that the house of cards eventually falls apart. These are the most experienced and best tobacco researchers we have here in Norway and they are the ones that should be responsible for NIPH's statements, views and presentations regarding this.

Norwegian e-cigarette consultation - My answer

In a couple of days, on monday 26th, we reach the deadline for submitting an answer to the Norwegian governments consultation on the proposed changes to the tobacco act, including a new section on e-cigarettes. I have written a couple of posts about the proposition earlier and what is wrong with it:

• Norway status update: The Norwegian government don't understand the vaping market 
• New Norwegian Tobacco Act proposal based on lies and misinformation
• Norway status update: Plain packaging and e-cigs regulated as tobacco

Below is an English translation of the answer I have submitted. I apologize for some weird English in the translation... I've only had time to let google translate most of it and just corrected the most incomprehensible parts :) 

I strongly encourage Norwegian vapers to submit their own answers. It does not need to be a long thorough walk-through of everything that is wrong, your own vaping story will help a lot. The more answers the government gets on this, the better are our chances of them re-thinking the whole thing. This has already happened in Denmark so it is not hopeless to try. 

For my Norwegian speaking readers: My original answer in Norwegian.

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Consultation on proposed changes to the tobacco regulations and new regulations on electronic cigarettes - Consultation response.

Lately the Minister of Health, Bent Høie, and his government have been under pressure because of their treatment of research reports on the effect of standardized snus- and cigarette packaging. Responding to this the Government defend their conduct saying that they want to use only quality assured background material as a foundation for the proposition (https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/vg-tilslorer/id2511679/). I fully support this choice so I find it reprehensible that the proposition is largely based on material that certainly is not quality assured, and apparently hardly has been read by the ministry. I also disapprove that the ministry puts forward some adverse and negative effects as potential problems when good evidence exists that debunks these theories.

1. Regarding neutral cigarette and smokeless tobacco packages
First things first. In his defense of holding back the NIPH study on the effect of standardized snus and cigarette packages Bent Høie says this: "The simple explanation is that in February 2016 an extensive Australian report on standardized tobacco packaging came out. This was so clear in its conclusions that the ministry believed it was not necessary with a Norwegian report as well this shortly after ". Australian authorities have presented the numbers in a way that makes standardized cigarette packages look like a success, probably because they do not want to admit that it actually has not been. They claim is that smoking has decreased from 15.1% to 12.8% after standardized packages were introduced, which is only a cheap trick. Statistics show that this decline has taken place from 2010 to 2013, standardized packages were introduced in 2012. The decline from 2010 to 2013 is virtually the same as it has been in previous years (approximately 0.75% per year), which rather suggests that neutral packages have had no effect. In fact, smoking among youth between 12 and 17 has gone up slightly in the period (http://www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs/ndshs/2013/data-and-references/, download data excel sheet), but it would of course be very wrong to argue that this is due to standardized packages, although this would have been natural if one continues to follow the same erroneous logic that led to the success conclusion. To find factors that actually works we should rather have look at why the proportion of smokers in England have gone from 19.3% to 16.9% between 2012 and 2015 after they’ve almost had a standstill the 5 preceding years with a decline of only 0.5% in total.

This shows that the ministry haven’t analyzed their background material properly and left out even the simplest form of quality assurance (namely reading material carefully), thus ending up with a totally ineffective regulation that will only lead to increased use of resources. One can even state a hypothesis about the effect of standardized snus packages that very much seems plausible, namely that the introduction of standardized packages for both snus and cigarettes will cause these products to be perceived as equally harmful by the population. We know with certainty that snus is not nearly as harmful as smoking tobacco, there are several studies that show this. One can also see the statistics from Sweden that there is a clear link between the fact that Sweden is the country in Europe with by far the lowest cigarette consumption and highest snuff consumption while having the lowest occurrence of lung cancer. They are also the lowest in the statistics of oral cancers.

It is in my opinion obvious that a significant review and quality assurance of the background material the ministry use as a basis for the introduction of this regulation is needed before this can be done.

2. Regarding regulation of e-cigarettes
Minister of health, Bent Høie, and other ministers have repeatedly stated that the government wants to remove the unnecessary ban on e-cigarettes on the basis that this has a great harm reduction potential compared to smoking tobacco. This is consistent with, among others, the English health authorities report (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-less-harmful-than-tobacco-estimates-landmark-review) that concludes that e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than cigarettes. Royal College of Physicians strongly recommend that e-cigarettes are promoted as widely as possible as a substitute for smoking (https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/promote-e-cigarettes-widely-substitute-smoking-says-new-rcp-report), and Norwegian government politicians statements in the media suggests that the government also wants to give smokers the opportunity to switch to e-cigarettes. Nevertheless, it is proposed here a regulation scheme which will counteract this to great extent. The proposed regulation will make e-cigarettes less accessible, less secure and knowledge of e-cigarettes and its relative harmfulness in the population will be much lower. In sum this will lead to that fewer people will be able to quit smoking but also that more people will start smoking. A number of experienced tobacco researchers have stated that e-cigarettes are the biggest health revolution since penicillin, and it is a consumer-driven revolution with the potential to end the tobacco epidemic once and for all if it is allowed to continue. Here I would encourage you to read Karl Erik Lund's comment about the e-cigarettes 'role in "the tobacco endgame", that describes this very well: http://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/nsad.2016.33.issue-3/nsad-2016-0018/nsad-2016-0018.xml.

2.1. Known misconceptions and myths
The purpose of the regulation of e-cigarettes should be to make safer products, protect the public from potential harm while preventing smoking initiation, especially among young people. Many of the proposed provisions are based on misconceptions, myths and poor quality assured background material. At the same time a lot of good background material is omitted.

Minister of Health Høie has repeatedly stated a concern that young people would start with e-cigarettes and then move to smoking. To this there is NO evidence and this "gateway" theory is disproved in virtually all serious investigations, such as the aforementioned study by Public Health England (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-less-harmful-than-tobaccoestimate-landmark-review), which concludes that "there is no evidence so far That e-cigarettes are acting as a route into smoking for children or non-smokers". NIPH's report from 2015 (https://www.fhi.no/globalassets/migrering/dokumenter/pdf/helserisiko-ved-bruk-av-e-sigaretter-pdf.pdf) also concludes this: "This seems to imply that e-cigarette smoking in Norway may have served as a means to quit regular smoking, and until now has not served as a gateway to start regular smoking." For us as former smokers, now vapers, this is also quite obvious. Going from a product that is relatively harmless, tastes good and gives good effect to a less efficient, more expensive and extremely much more harmful product makes no sense, neither when it comes to e-cigarettes / cigarettes or other product choices they make in life .

It also expressed concern about the effects of "secondhand vaping", and to protect non-vapers and non-smokers is the reason for a part of the regulation stating that e-cigarettes should be covered by the smoking ban. The 2015 NIPH report is largely used as justification for this. If you read this report in its entirety you will see that the aerosol from e-cigarettes is regarded as virtually harmless in terms of exposure to all substances other than nicotine. However, the report highlights that "passive exposure to aerosols from e-cigarettes causes about as high nicotine levels in the blood, as of a passive smoker of regular cigarettes. This means that one can expect similar harmful nicotine-related effects of passive smoking of e-cigarettes as for regular cigarettes. ". This is absolutely correct, but the report then claims that "this does not mean that passive exposure to aerosols from e-cigarettes provide carcinogenic effects, but that such passive smoking may affect the cardiovascular system, have stimulant effects and contribute to addiction.". This is completely wrong. Nicotine in passive smoking has never until now been an issue or a problem, and the reason for that is that the amount of nicotine taken up by passive smoking is not big enough to provide any biological effect at all. This is pointed out explicitly by Dr. Konstatinos Farsalinos, one of the world's leading independent researchers in the area here: http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/index.php/whats-new/whatsnew-2015/204-niph. FHI has answered this criticism and must therefore be aware of this (http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/index.php/whats-new/whatsnew-2015/207-niph2), but will still not retract their claims. If this serious error in the NIPH report had been corrected, one is left with no reason to include e-cigarettes in the smoking ban because of a need to protect the surroundings. It is worth noting that Public Health England's report from 2015 comes to a different conclusion regarding the amount of nicotine that is released into the air through the use of e-cigarettes (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/457102/Ecigarettes_an_evidence_update_A_report_commissioned_by_Public_Health_England_FINAL.pdf. One is thus left with a very thin basis for the inclusion in the smoking ban, namely odors and visual similarity with smoking. Prohibiting the use of e-cigarettes because of odors should be up to the individual house owner, not the state. When it comes to visual similarity with smoking, this will only apply to the tobacco industry's so-called "cig-alikes" (e-cigarettes that look like cigarettes) and we can assume that e-cigarettes are now so familiar in the population that mistakes will occur very rarely. Again the government's own desire to use only quality assured material as basis for the regulation is disregarded by using a conclusion that obviously is proven to be incorrect.

Another concern, that is the reason for several of the rules, is direct exposure to e-liquid with nicotine on the skin or by ingestion. In other words users spilling liquid on themselves or others, or that someone (usually children) unwittingly drinks nicotine e-liquid. The toxicity of nicotine is strongly exaggerated and the doses that are generally accepted as lethal are based on rather questionable self-experimentation in the last century (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-013-1127-0). In general, nicotine will not cause serious harm by spilling a little or that one is unlucky enough to swallow a few drops. Bernd Meyer, among others, has shown this here: http://www.bernd-mayer.com/electronic-cigarettes-and-nicotine-poisoning/. Note that this is based on three articles, quality assured and published in scientific journals (links are at the bottom of the article). Media has also regularly written stories about how nicotine poisoning cases have started to appear more often. Again, it's about quality assuring the background material. Looking at the real numbers behind this shows that there is often about phone calls due to worried users and ignorance being recorded without having particularly serious consequences, maybe just a little nausea and dizziness. In addition, we know that many other household products are sold completely unregulated and has much more damage potential if for example a kid get hold of it, than e-liquid. Comparing the number of serious poisonings from these substances to the number of poisonings due to e-liquid accidents, the latter number will be vanishingly small. Of course we want to avoid such exposure to nicotine e-liquid, but one must look at the relative harmfulness. I will return to this below. The consultation paper refers to an EU report which reported 277 cases of poisoning connection to the use of e-cigarettes. This in itself is a very low figure if one takes into account that this is over 3 years in 8 countries with millions of users. It is omitted in the consultation paper that only 6.8% of these (only 19 cases) have moderate or severe consequences (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri = CELEX:52016DC0269&from=EN). Here too, it is worth referring to Public Health England's "Evidence update" from 2015 which shows that there are very few unintended severe poisonings: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/457102/Ecigarettes_an_evidence_update_A_report_commissioned_by_Public_Health_England_FINAL.pdf

The addictive properties of nicotine itself is also a widely debated topic. To date there is little or no evidence of nicotine dependence that has occurred without the use of tobacco. This is because nicotine itself is assumed not to be able to create dependency, but interaction with other substances in tobacco is required to create dependency (see https://nicotinepolicy.net/karl-fagerstrom/520-dependence-on-tobacco-and-nicotine). A relatively strong support for this among scientists exists and millions of e-cigarette users report that they feel less dependent on e-cigarettes than the cigarettes. Professor Robert Molimard summarizes the scientific knowledge about the actual effects of nicotine on smokers here: http://www.formindep.org/The-myth-of-nicotine-addiction.html#report. This also provides support for concluding that a transition from e-cigarettes to cigarettes is highly unlikely.

2.2. Objections to the smoking ban and the ban on advertising Incorporating e-cigarettes in the general smoking ban can, as explained above, not be justified by a need to protect the environment for health reasons. It should, however, be up to the individual homeowners to regulate this. A restaurant owner is such pretty free, as far as I know, to make their own rules for example about how guests must be dressed. Likewise, they should be free to ban the use of e-cigarettes in their premises if they believe this is a nuisance to other guests.
English health authorities recommend businesses to not force users of e-cigarettes to go outside with smokers to vape as this can lead to relapse to smoking. This sounds very reasonable, and it is again a great encouragement to replace cigarettes with a less harmful alternative if you can use this indoors and in places you normally can not smoke. There are many stories about smokers who just tried e-cigarettes to curb nicotine cravings in situations where they are not allowed to smoke (eg. on airplanes or airports) and have ended up quitting cigarettes completely. These are often called "accidental quitters" and is a common phenomenon.
I observe that the ministry considering proposing exemptions from the advertising and display ban when it comes to e-cigarettes. This is good. If we want as many people as possible to quit smoking it should be possible to promote e-cigarettes. It should also be legal to inform customers that e-cigarettes means a much lower risk than regular cigarettes.

2.3. Objections to the registration requirements
The requirement for registration of all products including all varieties of both e-liquid and electronic cigarettes shows that the regulatory body have very low knowledge about the market to be regulated. The fees proposed are based on an assumed record of approximately 200 products that are based on projections from Denmark. The same applies to cost estimates. It is evident that the ministry has not made any investigations on their own or tried to understand the present market.

When it comes to e-liquid, the way I read the proposal, one will have to register each nicotine strength for each variant. E-liquids are often sold in 4-5 different strengths. This means that 40-50 different varieties of e-liquids will count as 200 products. This is no more than the range one finds from 2-3 producers. In many cases, manufacturers also have a selection of over 50 different flavors.

When it comes to e-cigarettes and equipment, over 20,000 products currently exists. A Norwegian dealer stated that they have approximately 1200 different products in stock. Of these probably more than half will be replaced within six months because they are outdated. Many manufacturers also produce a very limited number of items, so-called high-end products. None of these will be sold in Norway under such conditions. It goes without saying that you will not be able to make any money if you have to pay 47600 NOK to register a product that you usually sell around 10 units of. A processing time of six months we also see is a hopeless hurdle to get over, when a very large part of the products are outdated and replaced with new, improved versions by that time. One can also mention that if the government had allowed the state to take a large part of the estimated cost of around 10 million that these fees are intended to cover, this would have been an investment in public health who had paid for itself many times in a short period of time. The Directorate of Health has estimated that smoking costs society between 8 and 80 billion a year (https://helsedirektoratet.no/Lists/Publikasjoner/Attachments/90/Samfunnsokonomiske-kostnader-av-royking-en-vurdering-av-metodikk-og-kostnadenes-storrelsesorden-iS-1825.pdf) and it is obvious that if we can get more people to stop by using e-cigarettes this will lead to enormous savings. In this context, 10 million is a really small number.

It is obvious that the fees presented here will eradicate much of the market, as there are costs that make it impossible to operate in the market. The few who have the resources to cover these fees are large companies, mainly the tobacco industry with its so-called "cig-alikes". The tobacco industry is currently losing the market to independent producers but with such regulation their competition will largely disappear and tobacco giants will be left with the entire market virtually alone.

It is not the tobacco industry that drives innovation in the e-cigarette market. This is done by independent companies which are striving, not only for high performance, but also a high degree of product safety. This innovation and the desire to develop ever safer and more effective products will be seriously hampered by such a scheme with such consts. It also appears meaningless that all EU countries should have their own registration systems instead of a joint one.

A solution where manufacturers and importers must register and be responsible for that regulations are followed without recording every single product had been much more appropriate. The independent industry could then continue to exist and innovate.

2.4. Objections to product requirements
The maximum nicotine content of 20 mg / ml is inappropriate. Many smokers who want to switch to vaping will not experience this as satisfactory and this will lead to many more unsuccessful attempts to quit. In addition, different types of equipment produces different amounts of vapor and thus more or less nicotine is delivered. In more advanced models often used by more experienced vapers lower nicotine content is used since more vapor is produced. In models for beginners, which is the ones most often used when attempting smoking cessation, much less vapor is produced and the need for higher nicotine content is present. 36 mg / ml has traditionally been the highest content in the ready mixed liquid, but newer models that are specifically designed to get the over the first "hurdle" also contains even more than this to deliver enough nicotie with an even smaller amount of vapor. The limit of 20 mg / ml is justified by surveys that show that most people who vapes today use lower nicotine content than this. This is correct because all experience indicates that vapers gradually lowers their preferred nicotine content, partly because addiction becomes weaker and partly because of better equipment. Thus, this limit will most likely not lead to many of todays vapers relapsing to cigarettes, but it will be serious barrier for current smokers that want to switch.

The limit of 10 ml for refilling containers also appears to be inappropriate and will only lead to increased costs for consumers without providing greater product safety. The possibility that the small bottles are left lying around, accessible to children and pets, are at least as great as the larger bottles, if not greater. A requirement for child safety of the bottles is appropriate but the size limit like this will provide no noticeable security gain. Many household products are much more dangerous than e-liquid and come in larger containers and these should of course be kept out of reach of children, regardless of the size of the bottles. The same applies to the limitation of 2 ml for disposable cartridges. This will make e-cigarettes less user friendly, and decrease the chance of quitting, without causing any security gains.

The rules for refilling mechanism is unnecessary and will not provide any significant benefit to safety. As mentioned above, the potential for poisoning by getting nicotine liquid on the skin is quite exaggerated and even at concentrations far above 20 mg / ml will not cause any noticeable effect if a few drops are spilled on the skin if you wash this off quickly.

2.5. Objections to the requirements of user manual and labeling
The requirement for manual in Norwegian should apply to products produced in Norway, but it should also be opened for the English manuals. To oblige foreign producers to make Norwegian versions of the instructions could lead to so much more work and higher costs that one refrains from selling to Norway and we will thus have a narrower range of products, which in turn will lead to fewer people finding the model that makes them able to quit smoking.

The requirements on labeling also seems poorly conceived. Health warnings will indicate that this product is as harmful as smoking and will not encourage people to quit smoking. It also seems very out of place to have a reference to slutta.no on e-cigarette accessories.

3. Consequences of over regulation
As mentioned earlier e-cigarettes represent a health revolution that we seldom see the likes of. Today's market is developing rapidly and more and more efficient models are released rapidly. In addition, there exists a commitment and enthusiasm for the products that we've never seen before for a product that is intended for smoking cessation. A regulation like the one proposed here will, as I have described, slow the progression and force a large portion of today's players out of the market. This will lead to the loss of jobs and income to the state, fewer people will be able to quit smoking, more people will start smoking and we have a net negative effect on public health.

With high probability this regulation, and other countries' corresponding regulation of e-cigarettes, will lead to that in a few years only a few large rich players will be left in the legal market. This is mainly the tobacco giants. In addition there will be a huge black market where safety and health will not be the driving factors to the same extent that we see today. Many of the players in this market will probably be idealists who is currently operating in the legal market. This means even the black market will in all probability paradoxically contribute positively to public health, but in the black market we will also see forces pulling the other way.

4. Summary and Conclusion
The proposed regulation of e-cigarettes appears to be completely unfit for purpose, which must be to improve public health and save lives. It is pointless to regulate products that help people quit smoking, are demonstrably much less harmful than tobacco and which in addition contain no tobacco by including them in the tobacco act. E-cigarettes represent an enormous opportunity to save millions of lives worldwide but regulation such as the ones presented here will be a serious obstacle to this. E-cigarettes should either be governed by a separate own regulation scheme or under current regulation of foodstuffs and electronics products.

The government should also reconsider its introduction of standardized snus cans and cigarette packets as the figures and surveys that exist today shows that this will have little or no effect. Working with a sensible regulation of e-cigarettes would have been much better use of resources.

It emerges very clearly that the proposed regulation of e-cigarettes is an implementation of the EU's new tobacco directive on those points. Although Norway has a tradition of introducing EU directives in spite of that we are not members, it should be expected from our elected representatives that they make a thorough analysis of the impact of such directives. There are examples of misguided directives and perhaps the best and most relevant in this context is the EU's ban on snus. Again, we can look at the statistics and see that the the countries that have exemptions from this prohibition (Sweden) are destroying the other countries on the cancers statistics. Although many of our elected officials have been out in the media claiming that we are committed to implementing the EU's tobacco directive this is not true. We have our full right to reserve ourselves against this and we should do it in this case. I expect from our elected representatives that they manage to put the Norwegian people's lives and health in front of strawberries and champagne in Brussels and withstand pressure and threats. Take this opportunity to show that Norway is a pioneer where we are able to think for ourselves and not let us influence by they tobacco and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists at the expense of public health.

This regulation proposal show strong signs of lack of knowledge about the fields to be regulated. I will persistently ask Health and Care reconsider this regulation and obtain knowledge that can enable them to regulate in a way that allows us to benefit from the lifesaving potential of e-cigarettes. This knowledge exists, even here in Norway. Researchers from SIRUS that are now incorporated in NIPH has massive amounts of knowledge, but one must not forget the users who are organized into NDS.

5. My Story
Finally, I will briefly share my own story and experiences with the transition from cigarettes to steaming. I am now 36 years old and 4-5 years ago I saw someone using an e-cigarette in a movie trailer. I began to research online and tried some models, with and without nicotine. Finally I found a model that suited me well and e-liquid with enough nicotine that enabled me quit smoking the day I got it. Since then I have never looked back.

As a smoker my health was ailing to say the least. I coughed and spluttered almost all the time, I was overweight, much because I was not able to engage much in physical activities and my kids were probably pretty worried. After I switched to I noticed that my breath and stamina recovered quickly. I was able to start exercising and eventually I ended up being able to run long distances and not at least come along with the kids on skiing and hiking. Now I am in relatively good physical condition, have no problems with coughing or breathing and the frequent 3-week colds which virtually replaced each other when I smoked is completely gone. I have not been home sick from work for one single day since I switched to vaping.

For me and many others vaping have not only been a means to stop smoking. It has become a hobby and a committed and enthusiastic community has sprung around the products. This is also one of the reasons why vaping works. With traditional smoking cessation products you remove the cigarettes that for many represents both coziness and relaxation without replacing it with anything. Vaping replaces the physical act of smoking and many users also feel they get a community and a hobby in addition that helps one keep cigarettes away long enough to prevent a relapse.

Ever since I started with vaping I have followed developments in the industry, politics and research and would say that I have pretty thorough overview of how the market and the community work and the research that has been done.

Public Health England estimated that the vaping is at least 95% less harmful as smoking. At least. That does not mean you necessarily get 5% of the harm. My own experience suggests that this figure could well have been higher than 95% and many other vapers I've talked share this view. I often see people crying out for evidence that vaping works and actually helps people quit. There are now millions of living proof! I am one of them.

Norway status update: Plain packaging and e-cigs regulated as tobacco

Norwegian Minister of Health, Bent Høie,
showing his standardized tobacco packaging

During the first half of June, the Norwegian government will propose a revised Tobacco directive here in Norway. On a press conference yesterday, on the world no tobacco day, Health Minister Bent Høie talked about some of the changes that will be made. Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported from the press conference held at the Cancer Society yesterday. Plain cigarette packages is one of the changes to be made, something that Høie claims have been working very well in Australia. He plays the "Think about the children"-card pretty early on and his plain packaging, that also affects snus-packages, is his way of doing this:

"We must protect children and adolescents. The goal is a tobacco-free generation. We will do this using standardized packaging and remove the advertising effect"

The suggested changes seems to have support in the parliament and is expected to be passed into law before Christmas. Høie brags about the effects of the policy measures taken giving them credit for the fact that Norway has lower smoking rates than ever:

"The policy measures have worked, says health minister. In 1955, the proportion of daily smoking men 65 percent. In 2015 only four percent of youth 16-24 smoked on a daily basis, 30 percent smoke occasionally."

But Høie is worried about the fact that the use of Snus has dramatically increased the last 10 years:

"Snus use has increased dramatically the last decades. 30 percent of men and 18 percent women use snus. It is necessary to reduce."

Ok, so before Høie has even gotten to the topic of e-cigarettes he has proven himself completely unable to critically review statistics and analyse the success of plain packaging, to see the blindingly obvious connection between increased snus and e-cigarette use and decreased cigarette consumption, and to grasp the concept of harm reduction... at all.

First of all, Høie's belief that plain packaging has worked in Australia is a result of lies, lies and even more lies by Australian politicians that will not admit it has been an utter failure. Dick Puddlecote is just one of the people who have written about this. Another one from Christopher Snowdon can be found here. The reality, however, is that is that More Australian Kids Smoke After Plain Packaging. Of course I don't believe that plain packaging will make more kids smoke, but it's pretty obvious that it is indeed a total waste of time, energy and money, and the only possible effect seems to be that Høie and his colleagues will sleep a bit better thinking they've really made a difference.

Then there is the fact that Høie does not seem to see that the connection between increase in snus use and e-cigarettes and decrease in smoking prevalence and onset. In December I wrote that Smoking prevalence in Norway dropping faster than ever, and the accelerated decrease coincides with increased use of snus and later on e-cigarettes. A couple of days ago I also read in another Norwegian online newspaper, hegnar.no about a new nationwide survey showing that the use of snus in Norway reduces the cigarette consumption by 10 million cigarettes... every week! In this context, what the teens themselves say about why smoking isn't very popular any more might be interesting as well. But anyway, convincing Høie that snus in fact is one of the main reasons that Sweden and Norway has the lowest rates of smoking (and lung cancer) in Europe wouldn't necessarily help a lot. Cause Høie doesn't seem to understand the concept of harm reduction very well:

Snus is not as harmful as smoking, but snus is also harmful. We keep getting new documentation on it, at the latest now from Sweden showed that snus during pregnancy increased the risk of stillbirth by 50 percent. It says pretty much.

Yes, Høie, you are right about one thing... this really says a lot: To justify your plain snus packages you have to resort to shady scare tactics, this time using the unborn children. I don't know what documentation he is talking about, but 50% sounds like a lot right? I found this though, from 2010, which shows an increase of 0.2% from 0.3% for non-users to 0.5% for snus users. Granted, this is a 50% increase (actually more) but in my opinion it makes more sense to publish the actual increase of 0.2 percentage points in these cases, because in reality it's not a big increase in risk. 50% sounds like a lot, but in reality 50% of a very small number is ... well an even smaller number. In addition to this the study I linked to has limitations, and one thing I don't see mentioned at all is whether the snus using mothers to be were primarily former smokers. Then again, putting forth a 0.2 percentage point increase when publishing the study probably wouldn't raise many eyebrows... All of the above, however, doesn't really matter. In fact, even if you could prove there was a 50% real chance of stillbirth if you use snus while pregnant, that wouldn't justify putting snus in the same harm category as smoking. There are several things you shouldn't eat, drink or do (google it and you'll end up with a long list) when you're pregnant, but that doesn't mean that non-pregnant people shouldn't.

In addition to plain packaging Høie plans to repeal the ban on e-cigarettes in Norway. But that sounds like great news you say? Well...

We are going to open for the sale of E-cigarettes. Although E-cigarettes also are harmful, it may be an opportunity for people who want to quit with regular tobacco and move to a less harmful product. Opening for sale gives us a completely different opportunity to inform about E-cigarettes. I think many people who are using E-cigarettes believe it is only water vapor coming out, but the nicotine content in the vapor is as high as in normal cigarette smoke. It is not harmless to vape at home when the children are present.

As you can see, Høie is remarkably misinformed about potential harm from e-cigarettes and vaping for a man in his position. What he doesn't mention, but it has been talked about earlier this week in Norwegian media, is how vaping going to be regulated. What this is, of course, is Norway implementing the EU TPD. Again, we see several players in the media, trying to score political points here. Both the Cancer Society and government party FRP has been in the news, trying to make it look like they're the ones that got rid of the e-cigarette ban. The Cancer Society has been very negative to e-cigarettes all along, but now they see that there is really no way that the ban will remain in place, so they've written a letter to the health authorities urging them to repeal the ban. They know very well that this ban will be gone anyway, and now they'll focus on strict regulations. The populists from FRP fronts this as happy news for anyone wanting to quit or reduce smoking.

"This is happy news for the many who want to reduce or stop the use of tobacco. We're repealing a silly ban", says Morten Wold (from FRP)

What FRP and the government is doing is the same thing they did last year, trying to twist the facts and score political points among vapers, while implementing a directive that will limit the number of smokers moving to a less harmful alternative. It is also a directive that they in fact do not have to implement as Norway has a reservation right since we are not an EU member state. They simply don't have the balls to stand up to the EU.

On the positive side, at least it looks like stores will be allowed to display e-cigarettes and do not have to hide them away with the plain tobacco packages. This certainly will save some lives if it lasts.

So, status here in Norway right now: While politicians in the UK and now Italy are forming cross party parliamentary groups to create a reality based debate and work for reasonable regulations of vaping, standing up to the corrupt forces of the EU parliament, Norwegian politicians are either too clueless, careless or stupid to do so. Instead they just jump whenever the EU and Big Pharma says so.

But that does not mean our pro-vaping forces have given up the fight. There are strong forces here, constantly working to counter the attacks on vaping and educate both politicians and the public. Karl Erik Lund is one of them and together with Erik Nord (both from the Institute of Public Health) they strongly criticize Høie's wish to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco in today's edition of Aftenposten asking "Does Bent Høie care less about smokers' lives than the lives of others?". They claim that 8000 people can avoid premature death if e-cigarettes are not regulated as tobacco and finishes their article with some questions directed to Health Minister Høie (after referring to the RPC report): 

• Is he informed about the material from England? 
• Will he in case reconsider the appropriateness of regulating e-cigarettes as if they were tobacco products? 
• If not, how can we then not believe that the Minister of Health care less about smokers' lives than the lives of others?

As you can see, we have people here in Norway that has the guts to stand up and tell the truth, and that has the knowledge and position to get this into the media. What makes this quite exceptional from Lund and Nord is that they they publish this despite the fact that their employer supports Høies wish for tobacco regulation. Fantastic if you ask me :)
 

Norwegian Department of Health positive to harm reducing e-cigarettes

The Norwegian Department of Health recently published and presented their Public Health Report to the Parliament. According to the Norwegian governments' official web-portal, regjeringen.no, this report presents new policies in areas that the government believes has not been sufficiently prioritized or that require new approaches.

As I've mentioned earlier, The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research (SIRUS), wrote an answer to a request for input by the Department of Health during the process of writing this report. SIRUS' answer focused on harm reduction. After this Public Health Report was published SIRUS' head of research, Karl Erik Lund, was positively surprised by the impact their input:

We prepared a note on the need for harm reduction in the tobacco area but had little hope that the Department of Health would anchor harm reduction ideology in the Public Health Report. Now, however, the Norwegian health authorities for the first time has given the topic discussion in an official, authoritative publication and additionally they've taken a quite positive stance.

I've translated what the report says about harm reduction in the tobacco area:

Harm reduction in the tobacco area

The emergence of electronic cigarettes has intensified the debate about whether harm reduction should be a supplement to the traditional tobacco politics. Smokers who do not manage to quit will be able reduce their health risks by switching to e-cigarettes, even if these are not necessarily completely harmless.

Harm reduction as a political strategy has until now had no place in the Norwegian tobacco policy. The government is open to a rethinking of this area when it comes to e-cigarettes, but have not yet concluded on how the products should be regulated. Traditionally the authorities' policy to reduce tobacco use have had it's roots in three principles of medical ethics: The no-harm principle discourages the use of products which cause harm due to toxic content. The precautionary principle warns against use of products where it can not be excluded that undiscovered harmful consequences may occur in the future, and that these may be irreversible. The loss of autonomy principle warns against use of products which can be addictive.

A comparative perspective implies that the adverse effects of cigarette smoking are used as basis for comparison when evaluating the adverse effects of the use of e-cigarettes. Conventional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are nicotine products in a so-called substitutional relationship, which means that their user functions and users are strongly overlapping. There are still no epidemiological studies of any consequential damage by prolonged use of e-cigarettes. However, a number of studies indicate that the transition from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarettes will result in a significant risk reduction for the individual smoker. Expert groups have estimated that the overall health risks of using e-cigarettes probably constitute less than 10 percent of the overall risk of cigarette smoking.

Although the transition from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarettes will be harm reducing for the individual smoker, their effectiveness on community level will depend on the extent to which e-cigarettes may come to recruit non-smokers, postponing quitting, lead to double-use and recruit youth smoking.

Based on current knowledge there is no basis for assuming that e-cigarettes will cause adverse effects on a large-scale population. Users of e-cigarettes is currently almost exclusively smokers or former smokers, and e-cigarettes are used to reduce tobacco consumption, to stop smoking or to prevent relapse to smoking. According to the Institute of Public Health smoking is the single most important cause of differences in life expectancy between people with high and low socio-economic status. The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research has estimated that about 200,000 of the 700,000 daily smokers in this country have characteristics associated with low probability of smoking cessation. The large difference in risk between tobacco and e-cigarettes suggests that access to e-cigarettes will improve the health of the vast majority of users - which is the smokers.There are currently many disreputable manufacturers of e-cigarettes and studies have shown that the content of the products often do not match the content declaration. It is therefore a prerequisite for an eventual repeal of the current prohibition that quality requirements for the products are set, that the sales are regulated and that e-cigarettes in no way will be marketed to young people.

As you've probably noticed there are some points here that are still not concluded on, regulation being the most important one. They do not say much about how much or what kinds of regulation they envision. However, the fact that they seem to have understood the enormous value and efficiency of a harm reduction strategy is a huge step in the right direction.

So, while politicians in a lot of other places seem to work for strict regulations or even bans on e-cigarettes, seemingly unable to grasp the concepts of harm reduction, it looks like we're moving in the other direction here in Norway, where we already have a ban (on nicotine e-liquid that is). This is quite remarkable actually, as we have a strong tradition for over-usage of the precautionary principle here. As I've mentioned before, we even had a total ban on skateboarding from 1978 to 1989 here. So what is the reason that our politicians and health officials seems to have a relatively positive attitude towards the harm reducing e-cigarettes now? Well, we are indeed lucky to have SIRUS on "our side" here in Norway, but a lot of hard work and fighting is also done by the vapers themselves and we must not forget the tireless efforts made by members and the leadership of the Norwegian Union of Vapers (NDS). Here is what Karl Erik Lund wrote in the NDS Facebook group after the report was published:

This must be interpreted as a more sympathetic attitude to harm reduction in general and e-cigarettes in particular. Our note has been important, but it's still all inquiries and activity from you vapers which have prepared the ground for this shift in views on e-cigarettes among the political leadership.

Personally I also believe that the way e-cigarettes have been presented in the media lately have contributed a lot to this. We've seen vapers telling their stories about how the e-cigarettes have affected their lives, stories about how Norwegians travel across the border to Sweden to buy e-cigarettes and liquid, and Karl Erik Lund and SIRUS have done some extremely important work here by quickly debunking the horror stories that hit the media.

Norwegian government reveals tobacco ban, e-cigarettes to be legalized

"New ideas, better solutions" says the banner behind
prime minister Erna Solberg

On a surprise press conference this evening, Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg revealed the Norwegian government's plans to implement a total ban on all tobacco products in Norway from 2015. "With the new electronic cigarettes there is no need for the deadly tobacco cigarettes any more", Solberg said and explained how the electronic cigarette will replace tobacco cigarettes in Norwegian stores from January the 1st 2015. "We want Norway to be the first tobacco free country in the world and electronic cigarettes will be our solution to this. However Norway cannot afford to loose all this tax money money over night so licences to distribute and sell electronic cigarettes will be auctioned out kind of like we do with frequencies for radio dustribution. The details for this is not worked out yet but will be released before August".

When asked what made the goverment choose a tobacco harm reduction strategy that is so dramatically different from what the EU has gone for she responds: "Well we had a look at the calendar and decided that this is a good day to say that enough is enough. We don't want to waste any more time watching smoking rates slowly go down when we have the means to make them drop dead".

The planned changes in the tobacco law still needs final approval in the Norwegian parliament but all goverment parties have said they will vote in favour. Nothing more was said tonight about how regulations will be done regarding nicotine content, allowed devices and so on, but Solberg promises more details on this in the near future. Maybe we will know more already tomorrow as the goverment has scheduled a new press conference at 16.00 tomorrow. I hold my breath in anticipation.