Totally Wicked launched this challenge, but it is a challenge we hope all vapers and the industry can support. Totally Wicked want it to be everyone’s challenge, for if the TPD is implemented in its current form everyone will lose out.
Totally Wicked launched this legal challenge to the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive last year, on the grounds that Article 20 of the Directive breaches EU law.
Specifically, this challenge is based on the view that Article 20 of the TPD represents a disproportionate impediment to the free movement of goods and the free provisions of services, places electronic cigarettes at an unjustified competitive disadvantage to tobacco products, fails to comply with the general EU principle of equality, and breaches the fundamental rights of electronic cigarette manufacturers and users.
On the 6th October 2014, at the UK’s Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Justice Green decided that a ‘preliminary ruling’ reference should be made to the Court of Justice of the European Union to determine whether Article 20 of the TPD does in fact breach EU law.
The CJEU hearing is expected to take place later this year.
With this ruling, Totally Wicked became the first electronic cigarette company to win the right to challenge a Directive that will bring electronic cigarettes and e-liquids under the same regulatory scope as tobacco, and, one that regulates them far more stringently than some tobacco products.
Electronic cigarettes are not a tobacco product, they are a revolutionary product with the potential to render tobacco cigarettes obsolete and prevent millions of deaths from smoking. Totally Wicked believe that the TPD is likely to adversely impact the availability of good quality electronic cigarettes and e-liquids, and, jeopardise the life changing potential of e-cigarettes.
Please show your support by going to http://article20legalchallenge.com adding your name and downloading a poster to show your support.
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