Dear Representative Read This

Dear representative

Please read my short letter to you, I am a 62 years old male in your constituency who had smoked at the rate of upwards of 40/day over a 45 year period. My efforts to successfully give up smoking took over a 10 year period and involved all of the traditional methods such as patches,gums,sprays , prescription medicine(champix),hypnotherapy,Allen Carr book - all of these failed in a matter of days or weeks

Smoking is an expensive and not particularly healthy pastime and is obviously strongly dependence forming,so after trying and failing with all of the above methods I had resigned myself incapable of giving up or 'gave up on giving up'

I really do not want to appear or sound like a salesperson in what I wish to say next ,so please don't instantly dismiss it as commercial hype.

Purely by chance on a pedelec forum (electric bicycle) a fellow forum member charted his progression from smoking to using e-cigarettes over a 1 month period,explaining the process+pitfalls, and was generally very informative.I decided to do some detailed research into the various products and ordered a reasonable quality starter kit.

This was nearly 3 years ago,and I can truthfully state that I have never used a traditional cigarette since that date, the product evolution over that 3 year period has been quite remarkable, to such an extent I have no desire whatsoever to return to smoking, as I now have a more enjoyable product that is immeasurably safer and many health benefits have resulted . Please read for a moment http://alanbeard.blogspot.com.es/2015/11/relapse-prevention.html for another major plus.

Powys has no dedicated shops to purchase the more modern equipment, but you should be aware that these exist and bear absolutely no relationship in terms of appearance to a traditional cigarette, and 66% of all e-cigarettes bear no resemblence.

The main reason and point of my letter to you is to discuss the provisions of the Public Health Wales Bill.This will directly impact myself and other users of e-cigarettes, if the proposed ban on the usage of e-cigarettes in indoor spaces continues unabated.

I have given written evidence to both the Welsh Government and WHSCC consultations, and consider myself quite well informed on the subject (please read other blog entries of mine on here to confirm that statement)

So I am asking if you will please express my concerns that an evidence free approach by the Welsh Government on this matter will have a negative impact on the health of existing and future e-cigarette users (present smokers).

ASH estimates 130,000 total Welsh e-cig users of which ~56,000 are solely using e-cigarettes.It would be a Public Health disaster if a substantial number of these returned to smoking, due to the negative message from the proposals. As you will be aware widespread opposition,not only from the general public exists http://www.yourassembly.org/use-e-cigarettes-public-places-banned/, but also from many organisations such as ASH.CRUK,CEH,Tenovus,PHE,RCP,RSPH,Fresh,...etc who similarly agree that the proposals are unjustified.

Yours

G.A.Beard