Last August, Spain’s Ministries of Finance and Health started separately working on amendments for the Regulation of the Tobacco Market and Taxation Regulations, which had not been amended since 1998. The plan included tightening the tobacco regulatory framework, so as to be in line with WHO and EU TPD standards, in particular with regards to regulations concerning vaping products and other electronic devices.
Subsequently, a recent report by ECigIntelligence has pointed out that the draft on the amended Tobacco Act, including new provisions concerning e-cigarettes is now ready. Sadly, this seems to regulate the safer alternatives in the same way as the deadlier combustible tobacco products.
False claims against vaping
“On November 18, the Spanish Ministry of Health launched a campaign to discredit the vapor sector, on the basis of widely scientifically denied reports (it blames EVALI among other things for the responsibility of electronic cigarettes, the fact that the vapor emitted is carcinogenic and that electronic smoking is not helpful in quitting smoking, and even claims that it is just as harmful as cigarettes),” said president of the Spanish Association of Vape Professionals, Massimiliano Belli, in an email to Vaping Post.
In contrast, several other countries in Europe have endorsed vaping products as smoking cessation tools, as data keep indicating that they are more effective than other NRTs in helping smokers quit. A recent study from Italy published in Addictive Behaviors, has confirmed the efficacy and safety of e-cigarettes in helping smokers reduce tobacco consumption and improving their pulmonary health.
Science has proven the effectivness of e-cigs as smoking cessation tools
In the UK, local health entity Public Health England, has advocated for the use of e-cigarettes as smoking cessation tools to the extent of including the products in its Stop Smoking Campaign: Stoptober. Moreover, there have been several trials on the effectiveness of supplying smoking patients, inmates and even homeless individuals, with vaping products in order to help them quit cigarettes.
With regards to the claim that vaping is what caused EVALI, it has long been confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that the lung injury EVALI was caused by the consumption of illicit THC products, not nicotine vapes.
Rates of E-Cig and Marijuana Use Not Linked to EVALI Occurrence
As long as the Spanish health ministry remains in the pockets of Pfizer and other big pharma companies, these attacks will continue using any information they can find true or not.
Their plan seems to be to first demonize vaping making it seem as harmful to health as traditional tobacco. Next they will apply taxes at the same rate as traditional tobacco to the “dangerous” vaping products, recovering their lost revenue from the ex smokers who no longer are of financial interest to them.
Now as they make vaping less financially viable to people, and have given the image that it is just as harmful as traditional tobacco to the general population, in comes to play part two of their plan.
The current smokers who they have now scared away from trying vaping, and the ex vapers who can no longer afford to due taxation, have now becone perfect candidates to push their government subsidized Champix pills on.
You see the Spanish government at the end of 2019 bought up 30 million euros of Champix, compared to 18 million that they bought in 2018, with the idea to subsidize and offer to the population at a cut price as a method to quit smoking. Strangely this was only a period of about 12 months before Varenecline based medication was due to go generic, so why spend that amount when in a year you could have saved millions on the purchase? Surely Pfizer did not have a huge stock of pills that the value was due to drop considerably, and with some gentle financial persuasion convince a governmental institution to double up their order and take them off their hands.
There is repeated evidence that every anti smoking/cancer association and medical study, that finds dangers and evils in vaping has in some way had some kind of financial assistance from Pfizer or another big pharma company. It has been proven in Germany that big pharma was financing anti vapung studies through similar methods, but this time in Spain you get the government also taking the opportunity to make a quick buck at the cost of the health of its citizens.