Aiduce Anti TPD Petition

AIDUCE has been fighting for two years to keep vaping products free and accessible. In October 2013, we already launched a petition to prevent the European Parliament from classifying electronic cigarettes as a medicine. We collected almost 40,000 signatures. Europe finally decided to classify e-cigarette as a tobacco product.

Today, the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) imposes very heavy restrictions on vaping products currently available on the market. The only way to preserve vaping as we know it today is to stop the transposing of this directive into national law, a transposing the government wants to ratify without even using the usual democratic voting processes.

If you wish to challenge the unjustified restrictions which will automatically apply if we do nothing, and if you agree with our manifesto (available on the home page of the petition), please sign our petition.

Petition in support of electronic cigarette

The French Parliament is getting ready to review the bill on health. In Article 53, the government requests the permission to issue measures by ordinance in order to transpose European Directive 2014/40/EU on tobacco products.
This request of the French government is unacceptable for the following reasons:

• Since electronic cigarette does not contain any tobacco and produces no combustion, the proposed restrictions are inappropriate and disproportionate.
• The prohibition of tanks featuring a volume above a 2 ml limit will remove from the French market the majority of personal vaporizers favored by consumers. These products are much more innovative and effective than those resembling tobacco cigarettes and favored by the Directive, which have very few users in France at this point, are manufactured by affiliates of the tobacco industry and are designed to encourage dual use.
•  Electronic cigarette is represented as being as harmful as tobacco while, so far, no evidence of its harmfulness has been demonstrated.
• Nicotine solution is considered a highly toxic substance despite the EC 1272/2008 regulation on classification, labeling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP rules).
• Limiting the volume of conditioning units to 10 ml is expected to reduce the risk of skin exposure. According to the CLP classification, this risk simply doesn’t exist.
• This limitation will result in a sharp cost increase for the consumer as well as an increase in packaging waste with a negative environmental impact.
• The Nicotine concentration limit of 20 mg/ml applying to vaping liquid is much more restrictive than the one existing for tobacco cigarettes and products, therefore effectively preventing the adoption of a healthier alternative for more than 20% of smokers for which this dosage is insufficient.
• The requirement of a steady diffusion of nicotine is not a requirement for tobacco products and is not based on any scientific evidence.
• The information mandated on the labels are not required for tobacco products.
• The ban of any advertising is based on the idea that the electronic cigarette is dangerous, a notion challenged by multiple studies.
  

We therefore ask the Parliament to not ratify the enabling law for this health-related legislation draft.

Representing electronic cigarette users, AIDUCE is the only association who has been working for the past two years to better inform the public about the electronic cigarette (see our information brochures here: public.aiduce.org), who is actively participating in the standardization process conducted by AFNOR to ensure product safety, and who refuses a debate about the future legislation on the electronic cigarette without consultation.

It therefore calls on all e-cigarette users to sign this petition to express their disagreement with the government’s upcoming approach and requests to not be excluded from the proceedings that would lead to a final legislation, if such a legislation was indeed justified. It is absolutely inconceivable to debate decisions in the absence of those most concerned by it.

AIDUCE, Independent Association of Electronic Cigarette Users.

For more information: contact@aiduce.org
• Petition open to everyone (users, relatives and friends who support the changes produced by the use of the e-cigarette, mere support of a new alternative to tobacco, future users, etc).

• Every electronic cigarette user signing the petition is welcome to share his personal vaping experience in a comment: tobacco cessation date, hardware used and health improvement…

• Signing this petition is independent from membership of the association. If you wish to support us, visit aiduce.org.

• You can download the paper version of the petition by clicking here.