Think tank considers feedback.
The European Parliamentary Research Service, a think tank, have produced a brief overview which covers the initial reactions to the EU’s Beating Cancer Plan. Initial feedback from nicotine consumer organisations was overwhelmingly negative due to the plan looking to tax vape products like cigarettes, extending bans on vaping in public areas, and worst of all, banning flavours.
It explains the purpose of the Beating Cancer plan in its briefing: “The plan consists of 10 flagship initiatives and 32 supporting actions, to be rolled out over the coming years. Implementation will be monitored by means of a roadmap and progress indicators, and the Commission will establish an EU cancer plan implementation group. With a €4 billion budget, the plan will make use of all available funding instruments, including the new EU4Health programme, Horizon Europe, and the Digital Europe programme.”
The European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (ETHRA) called the plan “perverse”, while the World Vapers Alliance (WVA) stated, “the European Commission is allowing ideology to get in the way of science.”
The positive points of the EPRS’ briefing is that it has included the negative feedback to help balance out the positive.
The WVA said: “The World Vapers' Alliance is concerned about the bias the plan demonstrates against vaping, and 'ignores the wealth of evidence showing that vaping represents only less than half of one percent of the cancer risk that smoking does'. According to the alliance, in addition to ignoring the evidence supporting vaping as a less harmful alternative to smoking, the plan equates vaping to smoking in some of its parts.”
“The alliance argues that, if vaping is subject to the same rules as cigarettes, then those who give up smoking thanks to vaping will see smoking become, relatively speaking, more appealing, which goes against what the EU is hoping to achieve.”
Now, whether any of this will be taken into account before the final decision will remain to be seen, but we’ll take it as it comes.
What’re your thoughts? We’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Love, Supergood.