Peter Beckett - Clearing the Air

News

OPINION: Brussels must learn, disinformation is still disinformation when it’s politically convenient

On Wednesday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told Members of the European Parliament of how “appalled” she had become by the “disinformation that threatens global progress on everything from measles to polio”. “We need more capacity to…

Harm Reduction News

Voices of Harm Reduction Pt 8: Arielle Selya

Arielle Selya is a former academic turned consultant. She set out to prove that the “gateway hypothesis” - that vaping leads to smoking in young people - was real, but ended up disproving it. When many of her peers refused to listen…

News

How dare you comply with our ban? The hypocrisy of nicotine prohibitionists laid bare.

In twelve years working in and around advocacy for safer nicotine products, I’ve seen my fair share of hypocrisy from the prohibitionist wing of the tobacco control movement. It’s getting worse: we’re now seeing an EU Health Commissioner talk about vaping-induced popcorn…

News

OPINION: If vaping kills, what else are they lying about?

Olivér Varhelyi’s appointment as EU Commissioner for Health wasn’t a slam dunk. Members of the European Parliament - wary of the Hungarian nominee’s close ties to the country’s autocratic leader Viktor Orban - wanted assurances that his views on abortion (it’s often…

Harm Reduction Advocacy News

Explainer: why vape prices will more than double with Trump tariffs

Trump’s tariffs look set to ruin the US vaping industry and send consumers back to cigarettes en masse thanks to sky high price rises. To understand why, and in particular why this is so acutely bad for vapes in particular, we need…

News Legislation

12 EU Member States demand a vaping and pouch “crackdown”. They’re in the minority.

“Out-of-control immigration policies and Islamist violence are frightening people and destabilizing Europe’s democracies”, lamented German media magnate Matthias Dophner in a piece for the Bildt newspaper, which he owns, in November last year. “Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China are waging or funding…

Advocacy News

Voices of Harm Reduction Pt 7: Fiona Patten

We cover Australia quite a lot on CTA, but you’re the first Aussie we’ve had on this slot so far… Well, I’m honoured. So I kind of have to start with, what the hell is going on over there? The Government seems…

News

A hollow victory: EU Commission recommendation to ban vaping everywhere agreed by Member States, but with huge caveats

The European Commission’s recommendation that Member States ban vaping everywhere has been agreed, but only because multiple Member States added riders saying that they’ll essentially refuse to implement it.

News

Parliament won’t support the European Commission’s plan to ban vaping everywhere. What happened?

When I wrote earlier this week that the European Parliament should reject the Commission’s plan to ban vaping in all public spaces across Europe, I did not expect them to take my advice.

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