By Paul Bergen from tobaccoharmreduction.org. What news! When it comes to matters of nicotine, its rare that a government report not only exhibits common sense but gets as far as being reported in two major newspapers without some prohibitionary lunatics weaseling themselves into the mix. Though both the report in the MailOnline and the The Guardian  [...]

We work hard to follow Trading Standards rules. Not every retailer is the same. And the other day we found, not for the first time, a retailer blatently breaking all the rules. So we reported them to Trading Standards. And they couldn’t do a thing. The company was taking orders from UK customers. But it [...]

An open letter to the MHRA. Dear Amanda As you know, there is a conflict of interest between large pharmaceutical companies involved in a multi-billion dollar smoking cessation market and the electronic cigarette. Many smokers will now turn to electronic cigarettes instead of using quit smoking aids. As smoking aids have a low long term [...]

Earlier this month we wrote to the MHRA asking when a decision will be made on whether the e-cigarette will be regulated as a medicine. The MHRA wrote back to us saying the decision was expected this month. Today we wrote again asking for confirmation of this: Dear Mr Mean Thank you again for your [...]

The title of this blog post was a question left on a comment by a user the other day. Here’s our answer! Already regulated Firstly, there is an assumption that the e-cigarette is not currently regulated. In contrast, the electronic cigarette is already regulated by Trading Standards in the UK. Trading Standards officers have already [...]

We have made an official letter of complaint about the MHRA, sending the complaint to the Minister of Health, Vince Cable, Coalition Business secretary and everyone else we can think of. You can read the letter below: Dear Sir, I am writing to you to make you aware of the grave concerns we have over [...]

The MHRA are supposed to be holding a consultation on what to do with the electronic cigarette. Yet according to a leaked trading standards letter the decision has already been made – before the end of the consultation! The letter, which was sent to us by Kate of Vaper’s Network, states: “The outcome will be [...]

We were quite astonished to find out that until we sent the MHRA an electronic cigarette recently they had never actually seen the device they were trying to ban, let alone used or tested it. The MHRA, it seems, are not alone in their neglect. According to one source we have in America, it turned [...]

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have told us in an email that they have no response to make to withering criticism by the Royal Policy Committee (RPC). Last month the RPC, which was set up to improve policy making in the UK, strongly criticised the MHRA’s attempt to ban the electronic cigarette [...]

The UK Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) has issued a withering criticism of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)’s consultation letter calling for the regulation of electronic cigarettes as a medicine, pointing out out that there is insufficient evidence that the electronic cigarette poses a risk to public health. The MHRA, while acknowledging the [...]