Please Don't Sentence Smokers to Death
Following Smokefree's advice to email the senators involved with the tobacco bill, we sent this fax to Senator Kennedy - we will keep you up to date with any reply!
08/05/2009
Also see Smokefree's advice urging us to oppose tobacco bill along with contact details of the advisors involved:
Dear Senator Kennedy
I am writing regarding the tobacco bill which you are supporting and which is due to enter the Senate on Tuesday.
All the experts I have spoken to, and this includes David Sweanor, who has advised the WHO on tobacco control, Dr Joel Nitzkin, who is chair of the Tobacco Control Group of the American Society of Physicians and Dr Murray Laugeson, who has carried out product assessments of the electronic cigarette have told us that the risk of these products is a fraction of the risk of smoking real cigarettes.
However, the current bill is likely to lead to defacto ban on alternative products by, according to Dr Joel Nitzkin, demanding research that is physically impossible to carry out.
The estimated risk of one alternative product, the electronic cigarette, is, according to Dr Nitzkin, between one percent and one tenth of one percent of that of cigarettes. If every smoker were to switch to the devices, the death rate from smoking would eventually fall from four hundred thousand a year to between 400 and 4000 a year.
One third of smokers are killed by smoking. By denying smokers who can't or won't quit the electronic cigarette, I believe the bill would essentially sentence one third of the smokers who would have to safer alternatives to death.
I urge you to amend the bill to provide support for the safe smoking alternatives which we believe could save smokers' lives.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards
James Dunworth
IT Director
E Cigarette Direct