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The Higher Administrative Court for North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany, has instructed the state to remove bans and warnings about e-cigarettes within three weeks. In the opinion of the court, these are tobacco products and not drugs.
This adds to the defeat of Holland's national government on the same issue.
It looks as if courts everywhere are not bowing to the pressure from the pharmaceutical industry that government departments so clearly are. What it means is that attempts to classify e-cigarettes as drugs in Europe, by regulatory-captured government departments acting for the pharma industry, or tax-hungry States who want to remove any threat to tobacco tax revenues, are likely to fail when challenged at law. There is no evidence that consumer purchase of reduced-harm products should be seen as drug use; no evidence of any potential for harm, in the case of the e-cigarette; and no benefit to the public when consumer purchase choices are controlled by the State in order to protect tobacco tax revenues and pharmaceutical industry income.
We could almost certainly expect the same result in the UK, as all the issues and evidence are the same. In fact we would expect an application for substantial costs to succeed since the issue is now well-determined, with defeats of the US government, the Dutch government, and a major German state at law.
The Higher Administrative Court for North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany, has instructed the state to remove bans and warnings about e-cigarettes within three weeks. In the opinion of the court, these are tobacco products and not drugs.
This adds to the defeat of Holland's national government on the same issue.
It looks as if courts everywhere are not bowing to the pressure from the pharmaceutical industry that government departments so clearly are. What it means is that attempts to classify e-cigarettes as drugs in Europe, by regulatory-captured government departments acting for the pharma industry, or tax-hungry States who want to remove any threat to tobacco tax revenues, are likely to fail when challenged at law. There is no evidence that consumer purchase of reduced-harm products should be seen as drug use; no evidence of any potential for harm, in the case of the e-cigarette; and no benefit to the public when consumer purchase choices are controlled by the State in order to protect tobacco tax revenues and pharmaceutical industry income.
We could almost certainly expect the same result in the UK, as all the issues and evidence are the same. In fact we would expect an application for substantial costs to succeed since the issue is now well-determined, with defeats of the US government, the Dutch government, and a major German state at law.
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