Tory MEPs are set to make a last ditch attempt to stop Labour-led reforms designed to reduce the take up of smoking by children.
At lunchtime today the Conservative Party’s most senior MEP is expected to make a last ditch attempt to stop Labour-led reforms designed to reduce the take up of smoking by children.
New European legislation, which has been steered through the European Parliament by Labour MEP Linda McAvan, will have its final vote today. The package has the support of a significant majority of the European Parliament and the backing of almost all EU countries, with the UK government strongly supportive.
The Tories’ ECR group was the only political group to oppose the agreement with national governments in December; the Tories voted against the agreement as a whole in committee last month, and various Tory MEPs tabled tobacco industry amendments throughout the process.
The Conservatives are now using last-minute tactics to delay the whole thing on a technicality.
Martin Callanan, the lead MEP on this issue for the ECR group, has made a formal request to delay the vote tomorrow. Just before the vote, he is expected to disrupt proceedings and force a vote on postponement. Every other mainstream political group supports the agreement.
Commenting on the move, Labour’s European spokesperson on the environment Linda McAvan MEP told Left Foot Forward:
“It is one thing to vote against the agreement, which we expect all Tory and UKIP MEPs to do, but it is another to actively campaign to derail it.
“Postponement would mean it is very unlikely we will have a tobacco directive in time for the elections, kicking the law into the long grass. It is exactly what the tobacco industry wants, as it will buy them another few years.”
The measures being voted on today include larger graphic warnings on 65 per cent of tobacco products, with national governments free to go further and introduce plain packaging; a ban on flavoured cigarettes and lipstick and perfume packs, which are specifically targeted at young people; and proper regulation of e-cigarettes for the first time.
Tobacco is the cause of more than 100,000 deaths each year in the UK – nearly half of smokers will die from a smoking related disease – and remains the leading cause of preventable premature deaths across Europe.
More than 700,000 people a year die in the European Union as a result of smoking and 70 per cent of those started smoking before the age of 18.
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16 Responses to “Tories make last-ditch attempt to prevent action on take up of smoking by children”
Neal Roff
As a lifelong Labour supporter I am disgusted that Labour refused to see that the Tories were fighting Article 18, not the whole TPD. Just think of the millions of lives you could have helped/saved. Hope you all sleep well. The utter disgrace that was supposed to be democracy in the EU today has left me with no other option. i will never vote Labour again.
harleyrider1778
This pretty well destroys the Myth of second hand smoke:
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16741714-lungs-from-pack-a-day-smokers-safe-for-transplant-study-finds?lite
Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds.
By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News.
Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.
What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.
“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study………………………
Ive done the math here and this is how it works out with second ahnd smoke and people inhaling it!
The 16 cities study conducted by the U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY and later by Oakridge National laboratories discovered:
Cigarette smoke, bartenders annual exposure to smoke rises, at most, to the equivalent of 6 cigarettes/year.
146,000 CIGARETTES SMOKED IN 20 YEARS AT 1 PACK A DAY.
A bartender would have to work in second hand smoke for 2433 years to get an equivalent dose.
Then the average non-smoker in a ventilated restaurant for an hour would have to go back and forth each day for 119,000 years to get an equivalent 20 years of smoking a pack a day! Pretty well impossible ehh!
gibla
In the interests of some balance it should be pointed out that Martin Callanan supported the other measures included in the TPD but did not agree with the ill thought out article 18 to regulate e-cigs . How proposals could be introduced in December 2012 and pass through various committee stages followed by a plenary rejection of excessive regulation as shown in October by a substantive majority(360 to about 290)of MEP, this issue is still contentious even today. When MEP are able to overcome Party prejudice and carefully examine the facts in an unbiased manner they usually are persuaded by the Scientific and user evidence of the huge potential of e-cigarettes in the aim of reducing smoking. Martin Callanan to his credit was one of the first MEP to see this potential ,unfortunately not one single Labour MEP has exercised their own judgement but simply followed the illogical Party line on this,crucially they have largely refused to even discuss the matter or seek the views of e-cig users which is a totally undemocratic way of representing 2 million constituents in the UK.
harleyrider1778
Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Third Edition
This sorta says it all
These limits generally are based on assessments of health risk and calculations of concentrations that are associated with what the regulators believe to be negligibly small risks. The calculations are made after first identifying the total dose of a chemical that is safe (poses a negligible risk) and then determining the concentration of that chemical in the medium of concern that should not be exceeded if exposed individuals (typically those at the high end of media contact) are not to incur a dose greater than the safe one.
So OSHA standards are what is the guideline for what is acceptable ”SAFE LEVELS”
OSHA SAFE LEVELS
All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes.
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes.
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes.
For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time.
The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.
So, OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :
Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA.
Why are their any smoking bans at all they have absolutely no validity to the courts or to science!
harleyrider1778
Smoking spy the start of tyranny.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
Last updated 08:52 26/02/2014.
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OPINION: I was in the Stratford police station at 9am on February 17 when I overheard a woman report to a nice young policeman that she had seen a woman smoking in her car with probably her children.
Can I say to that woman you are 70-odd years too late.
Hitler had a regime that made people spy on each other, so you can ask many million dead Jews and anti-Nazi people what they think of a system where people dob in people for doing something that is still legal.
You probably think you are a hero, but I think you are pathetic. …
Many thousands of young New Zealand men and women died fighting for freedom and against tyranny in World War II.
Spying and reporting things like this is the start of tyranny.
I am very sure when we sing our national anthem there is a line that says, ”God defend our free land”.
Between you, lady, and our politicians you are making a mockery even of our national anthem. A person like you would probably vote for the Green Party.
They don’t like smokers but want to legalise cannabis. That to me is scraping even further down than the bottom of the barrel.
When is the Commissioner of Police going to have the guts to tell our politicians that the police are no longer going to enforce absolutely stupid legislation that tramples on our freedoms and rights given to us, the people, under the Magna Carta.
ROB LAW