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***Kate*** · 02-05-2010, 02:07 PM

Uma needs a laugh so I thought I'd post this correspondence to cheer her up:

Messages between me and the Department of Health:

Quote:I'd like to make a formal complaint about the treatment I've received while making queries to the DH.

A record of the correspondence is below and I still don't know what DH policy is on ecigs:

FAO
Mr Oliver Smith
Deputy Director, Tobacco and Health & Wellbeing Policy
Department of Health
Wellington House

Hi Mr Smith

Please would you have a look at this discussion and feel welcome to join in if you'd like - http://vapersnetwork.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=115

I'd be most grateful if you would let me know what you think would be the best way to deal with this situation.

Ecigs promise to revolutionise the habits of smokers and are considered many times safer than smoking. Please help us to keep this life saving product available and effective. Regulations could harm people by discouraging use and making a most effective device as useless as NRT.

Thanks very much
Kate ***

**********************

DE00000470531

Dear Ms ***,

Thank you for your recent email to the Department of Health about electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). I have been asked to reply.

The Department has commissioned research through the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) to test e-cigarettes to see if they comply with the law. This scientific research has found that e-cigarettes contain toxic levels of nicotine and that none of the products tested to date complies with product safety regulations. Local authority trading standards departments have accordingly been informed, and trading standards departments have already removed e-cigarettes from sale because they do not comply with product safety regulations.

Local authorities enforce the product safety regulations and the Department is working with them to protect the public from the dangers of e-cigarettes that contain toxic levels of nicotine.

E-cigarettes should not be sold as an aid to quitting smoking without authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which, so far, has given no such authorisation.

I hope this reply is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Cameron Gordon
Customer Service Centre

*****************************

This is my original message to DH:

FAO
Mr Oliver Smith
Deputy Director, Tobacco and Health & Wellbeing Policy
Department of Health
Wellington House

Hi Mr Smith

Please would you have a look at this discussion and feel welcome to join in if you'd like - http://vapersnetwork.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=115

I'd be most grateful if you would let me know what you think would be the best way to deal with this situation.

Ecigs promise to revolutionise the habits of smokers and are considered many times safer than smoking. Please help us to keep this life saving product available and effective. Regulations could harm people by discouraging use and making a most effective device as useless as NRT.

Thanks very much
Kate ***

Your reply is totally inappropriate. Please give me contact details for whoever deals with policy on electronic cigarettes.

LACORS got their measurements wrong, none of the samples contained over 7.5% by volume nicotine which is the limit set by the Poisons Act.

Thank you
Kate ***

************************************

Hi. Please could you send me contact details for the person responsible for policy on electronic cigarettes.

Thanks
Kate ***

***********************************

Dear Ms ***,

Thank you for your further email to the Department of Health about electronic cigarettes.

I have passed your original correspondence to the Department of Health’s senior policy manager for tobacco who has noted your comments, but confirmed that there is nothing to add to my previous reply.

I hope this clarifies the Department’s position on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Cameron Gordon
Customer Service Centre

**************************************

Hi Cameron

I'd like to present objections to the letter sent to

Mr Oliver Smith
Deputy Director, Tobacco and Health & Wellbeing Policy
Department of Health
Wellington House

The Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS), Trading Standards Institute (TSI) and The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) recently sent a formal letter to the Department of Health outlining changes they would like to see made to existing legislations so they includes electronic cigarettes.
http://esmokerdirect.com/blog/propos...onic-cigarette

These bodies apparently aren't enforcing existing consumer protection laws. The Poisons Law deals with levels of toxins allowed and other laws cover product safety - traders operating outside the law should be dealt with accordingly. What is the point of more legislation if we are not protected with the ones that exist?

Their call for legislation to categorise vapour as harmful smoke is not credible and is based on uncivilised control tactics. Please confirm if the DH is considering supporting this measure.

Thank you
Kate

**********************************

Dear Mr ***, [Note that I've now grown a penis]

Thank you for your further email about e-cigarettes.

It may be helpful if I explain the context and the substance of the letter to the Department of Health from the organisations, Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services, the Trading Standards Institute and The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.

These organisations wrote to the Department of Health in September 2009 calling for the definition of 'tobacco products' to be reviewed with a view to including e-cigarettes and similar products, or for these products to be regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the same way that they currently regulate nicotine delivery systems. They said in their letter:

Whilst Councils can continue to apply the General Product Safety Regulations and other safety legislation to these products, in the interests of consumer protection, it is considered that further products specific controls may be required.

You may be confusing the role of these organisations and the role of local authority trading standards officers. It is local authority trading standards officers who are the statutory enforcement officers for the laws to which you refer, in particular the consumer protection laws. Consumer protection laws are being enforced by local authority trading standards officers and that is why electronic cigarettes which do not conform with the relevant regulations have been removed from sale.

I am afraid that there is nothing further that the Department of Health can say on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Cameron Gordon
Customer Service Centre

***************************************

Dear Cameron

You said:

These organisations wrote to the Department of Health in September 2009 calling for the definition of 'tobacco products' to be reviewed with a view to including e-cigarettes and similar products, or for these products to be regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the same way that they currently regulate nicotine delivery systems.

I'd like to know if you intend to support the request to define vapour as smoke and/or recreational vaping as medical use? Will you be calling for tobacco regulations or medical regulations to apply to ecigs? How will you make ecigs fit the definitions of either?

The MHRA do not regulate snuff or other tobacco products so if you define ecigs as tobacco then the will not be appropriate as the only nicotine delivery systems they regulate are medically proven NRTs. In fact vaping has not been proven to be an effective NRT so cannot be claimed to be a health product. As the MHRA has no jurisdiction over non-medical use any health claims made by traders should be stopped by trading standards enforcement officers.

Defining vapour as harmful smoke appears to have no purpose other than to inconvenience and stigmatise smokers who would otherwise use this less harmful alternative to smoking.

Ecigs are neither tobacco or medical products. Vaping is a recreational activity that can involve the use of nicotine. There is no second hand smoke or risk for bystanders and there are no reported adverse health effects after over three years of wide commercial availability of this product.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kate

*********************************

Dear Ms ***,

Thank you for your further email to the Department of Health about ecigarettes.

We have answered your questions on this matter several times and have explained the Government's position. As previously stated, the Department has nothing further to add on this issue and any further correspondence you send on this matter will be logged but will not receive a reply.

I hope this clarifies the Government's position.

Yours sincerely,

Cameron Gordon

***************************************

That's a lie. You did not answer any of my questions, you pumped out propaganda. The reason I had to ask you more than once was because you didn't reply.

Thanks for nothing

Quote:Dear Ms *****,

Thank you for your email of 15 January making a formal complaint about correspondence you have had with the Department regarding electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes).

I am sorry to read that you feel the Department has not properly explained its policy on e-cigarettes. However, having reviewed the correspondence, I am satisfied that we have responded appropriately and helpfully to your requests, although I hope you will accept my apologies that we addressed you as ‘Mr’ in one of our emails.

I am afraid that there is therefore little I can add to previous replies, other than to emphasise that the Department is not in a position to promote these products. While claims are made on the Vapers Network site that e-cigarettes are considered many times safer than smoking and that they are life saving and effective, the Department is not aware of any peer-reviewed scientific research to support such claims. We would therefore suggest that consumers exercise caution.

You may be aware that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has recently launched a public consultation on the regulation of nicotine containing products. Further information is available on the MHRA website at:
<a href="http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Publications/Consultations/Medicinesconsultations/MLXs/CON065617">http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Publications/...MLXs/CON065617

I appreciate that you will be disappointed with this reply, but I hope I have been able to clarify the Department’s position. If you remain unhappy, you can ask your MP to contact the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, who carries out independent investigations into complaints about Government Departments. The contact details are:
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
MillbankTower
Millbank
London SW1P 4QP

Telephone: 0845 015 4033

Email: <a href="mailtohso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk">phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk</a></div>

Yours sincerely,

Quote:I asked what the DH policy was and had no response. Your representative did not have a rational discussion but talked about irrelevant details as you have just done. It doesn't matter what Vapers Network thinks, I asked what DH policy was and was given no answer, just junk about Lacors etc.

Who asked you to endorse vaping?

BigSpenda · 02-06-2010, 01:25 AM

Evidently, they've learnt how to be an Infinitely Recursive Telephone Menu, by email.

How fxxking frustrating! I'd have been on a train to London, with an appointment, having booked an entire hour with the person who failed to answer your emails, every time. If he didn't see me, I'd have staged a commando raid on my MP's office, and explained that I was stuck in London, and why. Actually, I might have scheduled the appointment with BOTH my MP and Mr Thingy-What-Don't-Answer-Emails. It never, ever hurts, to have a witness.

Lordy! Some parents do 'ave 'em!

Fxxking morons...

I 4215

in zere general direction!

Tx for the laugh.

Hugs, 7193

Uma

***Kate*** · 02-06-2010, 01:34 AM

I kept imagining that I was trying to talk with someone who was autistic, Sign0020

.

I've just sent this to the ombudsman:

Please register an official complaint about this for me.

A record of correspondence between the Department of Health me and is below. I am very unhappy that I was not given information related to my concerns and that the issue has now escalated.

Intent to take nicotine off the open market was announced on 1st February, it is to become a controlled substance (I'm not sure of the definition of controlled drug so apologies if this isn't accurate).

It is not in the public interest for tobacco and pharmaceutical companies to have a monopoly on the nicotine market, it's worth a fortune and many lives but their vested interests are not compatible with supplying products that both satisfy and don't harm. Cutting out their competition and changing the status of nicotine is surely beyond the remit of any department and would require parliamentary approval? This appears to be protectionism of commercial interests that have been ineffective and dangerous for years. They must be laughing all the way to the bank to have competition wiped out for them by the government. One industry sells a killer product and the other sells one at massive cost to the taxpayer that works less than 5% of the time - how can that be justified never mind the question of how a satisfying and seemingly harmless alternative that costs the taxpayer nothing and saves lives is to be banned. The market will be captive if the DH proposals go ahead.

Only tobacco and medicines are to be allowed, that destroys the thriving harm reduced market and will give people no option other than to smoke for effective delivery of nicotine. Killing millions more.

Please let me know how I can go about bringing my concerns and complaint to an authority capable of addressing these issues.

Thank you
Kate ****

These were published 1st Feb:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/dr_consum_dh/groups...111748.pdf

http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Publications/Cons.../CON065617

[correspondence included]

***Kate*** · 03-14-2010, 02:42 PM

***Kate*** · 03-14-2010, 03:21 PM

These are some points I noted from Andy's letter:

"Nicotine delivery products are subject to existing consumer product safety regulations as enforced by local authority trading standards departments."

Except tobacco?

"Some e-cigarettes have been tested by local authority trading standards departments and have failed to comply with consumer safety regulations. They have therefore been removed from sale."

Since tobacco is still on sale it must have been exempted from regulations.
We should ask LACORS who tested ecigs, with what criteria and what the results were.

There are "concerns both in this country and internationally about the safety and risk to health of using e-cigarettes, or being exposed to the use of e-cigarettes by others."

What is being done about the real concerns about safety of tobacco products, are they to be banned in line with this logic?
We need to know what evidence there is of actual risks and find out how valid concerns are. Are the risks hypothetical, has anybody suffered significant harm?

Ecigs are not approved for smoking cessation and without MHRA approval are forbidden to be used for that purpose.

Tobacco is specifically exempted from consumer protection and competition laws.

Tobacco use is to be encouraged by ensuring that the only satisfying nicotine on the legal market is from tobacco.

***Kate*** · 03-14-2010, 04:28 PM

I've sent this to LACORS:

Quote:It would be appreciated if you would help me with something I heard from the Department of Health.

This video was published today and details a letter to a vaper (Andy) from Gillian Merron MP via his MP - http://vapersnetwork.org/forum/showthrea...61#pid1561

The letter states that "nicotine delivery products are subject to existing consumer product safety regulations as enforced by local authority trading standards departments."

Please could you tell me if tobacco products have a specific exemption to these regulations?

"Some e-cigarettes have been tested by local authority trading standards departments and have failed to comply with consumer safety regulations. They have therefore been removed from sale."

Please could you tell me who tested ecigs, with what criteria and what the results were? In what way did the failed products not comply with safety regualtions?

Thanks for your help.
Kate ***