Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/550304
How Does Cutting Down a Tree Protect the Toco Toucan? By harvesting managed Eucalyptus trees for use in construction and as fuel for curing barns, producers like Nelson Wagner preserve native forests for birds like the Toco Toucan and help protect the Planet. It's part of our commitment to unite the world under One Vision of action-oriented social responsibility. ACTION-ORIENTED SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ACTION-ORIENTED SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY See Our Vision for Positive Change AOIsustainability.com Lobbyists have been working long and hard for e-cigarettes to be classified outside the medical sector. Ray Story is ceo of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association (TVECA), one the prime lobbying organizations working with EU and US legislators. Ray will give his views in depth when he appears at the joint Bali exhibitions ProTobEx Asia and Inter-tabac Asia, in February, which is co-organized by October Multimedia, the publishers of this magazine. Speaking to Tobacco Asia before the EU vote, he said, "We stand by our con- viction that e-cigarettes are not a drug delivery device, should be sold as an al- ternative to conventional tobacco prod- ucts and should be taxed as a tobacco product, even though there is no history of harm." The EU also put through a resolu- tion to allow refillable e-cigarettes, which appears at first glance to be an indus- try victory for the industry. But there is an important proviso. If three or more member states initiate future bans on refillable e-cigarettes on health grounds, the European commission could extend those bans to include the whole of the 28-member trading bloc. Many people voiced warnings about the new rulings, saying there will now be a fight to show that it would not be justifiable to ban refillable cartridges on health and safety grounds. Martin Callanan, who is the leader of the UK's Conservative party in the Euro- pean Parliament, said, "This is a perverse decision that risks sending more people Mike Taylor, director of scientific dev. at Essentra Scientific Services back to real, more harmful, cigarettes. Refillable e-cigarettes would almost cer- tainly be banned, and only the weakest products will be generally available. As many smokers begin on stronger e-cigs and gradually reduce their dosage, making stronger e-cigs harder to come across will encourage smokers to stay on tobacco." The pros and cons And so the arguments continue. It seems obvious to the pro lobby that e-cigarettes are less dangerous to health than conven- tional cigarettes, for both smokers and those affected by passive smoke. Vapers – people who use e-cigarettes – don't inhale any smoke at all and no smoke is left in the atmosphere to affect people in public places. What's more, the easy availability of e-cigarettes helps smokers to quit. They may well still be addicted to nicotine and remain vapers of e-ciga- rettes, but most experts agree that nico- tine is harmful only in extreme doses. However, given the absence of reli- able testing, the health benefits can not be proved. The anti lobby also argues that that al- lowing e-cigarettes in public places makes smoking normally acceptable again and encourages people to go back to conven- tional cigarettes. Or e-cigarettes might act as a gateway for a new generation of non-smokers to move on to conventional cigarettes. Again, there is no reliable research, and these are mere conjectures. As Amy L. Fairchild and James Col- grove, respectively professor and associ- ate professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia, wrote in the New York Times recently, "If e-cigarettes can reduce, even slightly, the blight of six million tobacco- related deaths a year, trying to force them out of sight is counterproductive." Another decision at the end of 2013, in a local commercial court in Toulouse, France ruled that e-cigarettes could only be sold by registered tobacconists, and ordered an e-cigarette shop to stop sell- ing or advertising the devices. Some commentators see this as an indication of what could happen on a wider scale when the EU publishes revisions to its Tobac- co Products Directive (TPD) in 2014. One argument is that e-cigarettes be- coming more intensely controlled under