The Minister for Health doesn’t like them; Irish Rail has already banned them and health advocates describe them as a gateway to smoking more than a halfway house to stopping – so why then are e-cigarettes stocked beside sweets in shops all over the county?
That’s the question as the country this week marks the tenth anniversary of the smoking ban….but without any regulation of a new industry that is growing at a rate of knots.
Organisations like Croí and the Irish Cancer Society have expressed their reservations on this phenomenon, while Irish Rail – followed by Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus – moved to ban ‘vaping’ on their vehicles.
According to Jane Cregan, spokesperson for Irish Rail, they wanted no ambiguity around the smoking ban, so a complete ban was introduced.
But RGDATA, the representative association for over 4,000 independent grocery shops in Ireland, says it has no official policy on the sale of e-cigarettes.
“People are selling them because there’s a demand for them,” said RGDATA’s Roseanne Regan.
And that demand may be accelerated by the product placement that allows e-cigarette display stands on the shop floor – despite the fact legislation has seen cigarettes themselves consigned to below the counter.
A decision on the matter may ultimately be taken at European level now, after MEPs confirmed that e-cigarettes would be regulated in the near future.
Member states will decide whether e-cigarettes are to be classified as medicines or tobacco products.
And if a country decides on the latter, e-cigarettes will need to carry health warnings, be childproofed and be subject to the same restrictions on advertising as tobacco products.
See special feature on e-cigarettes in this week’s Connacht Tribune
