{"id":37673,"date":"2026-05-21T14:57:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T14:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=37673"},"modified":"2026-05-26T08:57:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T08:57:22","slug":"opinion-the-eu-is-consulting-on-nicotine-bans-the-paper-trail-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/opinion-the-eu-is-consulting-on-nicotine-bans-the-paper-trail-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: the EU is consulting on nicotine bans. The paper trail matters."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

*Since this was written the commission has launched a second public consultation. We will write more about that shortly.<\/em><\/strong>

**This article, minus the swearing, has been submitted to the EU\u2019s call for evidence on behalf of Clearing the Air. <\/strong><\/em>Go ahead and write your own if you can<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. And use our comment writing tool<\/a> if you need inspiration.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annex 5 of the European Commission\u2019s evaluation of its tobacco laws tells you more or less everything you need to know about what they think of you and your opinions on safer nicotine products. In describing the results of its last consultation on the topic, we find the following passage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCitizens, the vast majority of respondents (89%)…disagree with the need of EU policies to ensure a higher level of human health \u2026 This result can be explained by the overrepresentation of respondents that are users of emerging products\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just in case that isn\u2019t clear enough, the report goes on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThis could be expected due to the identified campaigns and the nature of the consultation, which attracts those that do not support the attainment of benefits from this public health initiative either to commercial or other interests\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Let me translate that for you. \u201cYou\u2019re all degenerate addicts and we don\u2019t care what you think because you\u2019re either too thick to understand the greater good or being paid by big tobacco\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, the Commission launched another consultation. In a few weeks time, there\u2019ll be yet another. Our community will come out in force and break whatever response record it set last time, arguing against banning the safer nicotine products they used to quit smoking. And the Commission will do exactly the same thing as they did last time: tell you that you don\u2019t count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU\u2019s client media outlets are already rolling the pitch for them. On Tuesday, Politico\u2019s Health newsletter announced the new consultation by telling its readers – who are predominantly the people who will make the decisions on nicotine regulation – that  \u201cthe Commission\u2019s request for public feedback on a tobacco tax hike plan was swamped with thousands of anonymous pro-tobacco comments earlier this year\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That claim is one we rebutted on Clearing the Air when it was first made<\/a>: it\u2019s impossible to make an anonymous submission to an EU consultation. I made the same point on LinkedIn<\/a> the day before Politico went to press. So I wrote to the journalist asking them to correct the record. I did not expect them to do so, and they did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reporter in question has clearly already made his mind up, and is collaborating with The Examination<\/em><\/a>, which gets its money from Bloomberg Philanthropies<\/a> (which, as we all know, is desperate to get as many safer nicotine products as it can off the market). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newsletter where the story ran is sponsored by AESGP, which represents the manufacturers of nicotine replacement therapies and was in favour of a ban on vapes back in 2013<\/a>, the last time the EU looked at tobacco regulation. It\u2019ll almost certainly take the same position this time around. So much for objectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at this point, I suppose I should remind readers that the EU\u2019s Commissioner for Health has himself spent the last year falsely claiming<\/a> that vapes and pouches are as harmful as smoking. It\u2019s astonishing that we now just have to casually refer to this blatant maladministration as a given in nicotine policy, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It\u2019s against this background that the Commission is, begrudgingly, asking the unwashed masses for their view. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s be clear eyed about what is happening here. The Commission isn\u2019t asking you what you think because they want to know or will act on it. They are asking because they have to, and because it would look bad if they didn\u2019t. If there was any way they could get away with not asking, they\u2019d take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They know that they\u2019ll hear back from lots of people who\u2019ve benefitted from the safer nicotine products they so hate, and are already preparing the narrative for ignoring them. It goes something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLots of people who use vapes and pouches responded to the consultation saying they didn\u2019t want vapes and pouches banned. Their responses were very similar and we think they might have been encouraged to do this by Big Tobacco because they use phrases like \u201charm reduction\u201d, which the tobacco industry also uses. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to ban pouches and vapes because we don\u2019t like them. We said as much before this consultation and we\u2019ll be damned if we let the views of these idiot drug addicts change our minds. Some of them may die if we do what we want, and that is a price we are prepared to pay\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I write this there are already a couple of hundred responses to the call for evidence. My old buddy Hans from ACVODA is using the tools we built to analyse the last consultation on this one, and surprise surprise, most of the replies are from consumers who don\u2019t want their names published and who want to be left alone to use their nicotine in peace. I suspect a few thousand more will follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the point at which outlets like ours are supposed to encourage you to take part in this farce. \u201cTell the politicians what you think\u201d, I am supposed to say. \u201cYour views matter\u201d goes the cry, \u201cyou really can make a difference\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m not in the mood to play the game. I\u2019ve had a bad week, I\u2019m sick of the hypocrisy, and I no longer feel like participating in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wasn\u2019t the article I wanted to write. I even had Neil make an AI tool to help you frame your response to the consultation<\/a>. Use it if you want, it\u2019ll help you write a nice comment that the Commission can ignore or slander. It can\u2019t help you with the laborious twelve step process to actually submit something, nor will it prevent people who know better telling you you don\u2019t matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s a small act of resistance I suppose. And it\u2019ll help as a proof point when we need to convince MEPs to take a knife to whatever nonsense the Commission proposes at the end of all this, so it\u2019s not all in vain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So sure. Respond to the fucking consultation I suppose. The paper trail matters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*Since this was written the commission has launched a second public consultation. We will write more about that shortly. **This article, minus the swearing, has been submitted to the EU\u2019s call for evidence on behalf of Clearing the Air. Go ahead and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990004,"featured_media":37675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,260],"tags":[27,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-37673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-advocacy","tag-article","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37673"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37745,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37673\/revisions\/37745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37673"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=37673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}