Tobacco giant British American Tobacco (BAT) is fighting back against government proposals which could cost the industry millions of pounds by muscling in on the e-cigarette craze.
A subsidiary of BAT has become the first tobacco company in 20 years to screen an advertisement on British TV screens. Although the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency announced last year that it would regulate e-cigarettes and other nicotine containing products as medicines, a proposed e-cigarette licensing regime cannot come into force until the European Commission’s Tobacco Products Directive is implemented in 2016. Until then, e-cigarettes are subject to general product safety legislation, which means, in the words of the EU health commissioner (October 2013), they are less well regulated than “shower gel or a bar of soap”.
This temporary lacuna in the law is clearly one that embattled tobacco firms intend to exploit. Writing for NLJ this week, Sarah Moore, a solicitor in the product liability team at Leigh Day says: “It appears that while one marketing door may be closing for ‘big tobacco’ another is being left wide open.”
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