E-Cigarette Consumer Association of the UK

ECCA UK, the Electronic Cigarette Consumer Association of the United Kingdom, is a non-profit association that exists to protect consumers' rights, to provide correct information about electronic cigarettes, and to represent consumers' interests to the industry.

ECCA will work together with other consumer groups in Europe and elsewhere to protect and promote the interests of the growing number of smokers who have found a better alternative and who demand that their rights are respected.

ECCA will promote consumers' interests at local, national and European level; provide research resources; provide media resources; support the electronic cigarette industry in initiatives that benefit the community; and work for consumers to ensure that industry standards are maintained and improved.

ECCA is a consumer advocacy group and has no affiliation with any vendor or trade association.

ECCA is the most important stakeholder in Tobacco Harm Reduction in the UK, since we represent the largest group of harm reduction users.

Who does ECCA represent?

ECCA UK is a new organisation with a small but fast-growing membership. It is our duty to represent the hundreds of thousands of e-cigarette users in the UK*. We do that by listening to what they tell us on the ECCA forum and on the several other UK e-cigarette community forums, and by using that information to form our policies.

Electronic cigarette users have clearly told us these things:
-- As far as they are aware, and as far as the medical experts are concerned, e-cigarettes are highly unlikely to cause harm. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that there is any potential for harm.

-- By using e-cigarettes they will most likely assume the risk of a non-smoker. This is certainly proven for Snus in Sweden, which now has the lowest smoking-related death rate in the developed world and the lowest male cancer rate in Europe - purely as a result of their use of Snus - and according to several Professors of Medicine, e-cigarettes are likely to have the same or less risk.

-- If e-cigarettes were to become unavailable, almost all would return to smoking, with its associated risk of death.

-- There is no reason whatsoever to prohibit the use of e-cigarettes, or restrict their availability and use by unfair and unrealistic licensing, except to protect the income of the pharmaceutical industry by allowing quit-smoking drugs to be sold without competition. Protecting the even more profitable trade in chemotherapy drugs, COPD drugs, cardiac dugs and vascular drugs for the treatment of sick smokers is also a probable motive for opposition to ecigs.

-- Pharmaceutical interventions for smoking cessation don't work very well and sometimes kill patients. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that pharmaceuticals have a higher success rate in the long term than 10%, and some research shows it is more like 2%. Contrast this with an anecdotal success rate for conversion to e-cigarettes of 75% in a fully-mentored setting.

-- Some of our members tried repeatedly to quit by using pharmaceuticals, always failing - until they successfully switched to an e-cigarette. As far as they are concerned, electronic cigarettes are a life-saver. Instead of quitting they switched to a reduced-harm alternative.

-- Government departments have tried to ban e-cigarettes in order to protect the pharmaceutical industry's income. The result would obviously be loss of life. When is the government going to do something about the clear and obvious regulatory capture of elements within the UK Department of Health?

This is what the community have told us, and this is what we will act upon.

Tobacco Harm Reduction

E-cigarettes are by far the most important factor in tobacco harm reduction today. There is nothing whatsoever in existence that even begins to approach their importance in this area. The nearest challenger is Snus, but although its use resulted in the reduction of smoking prevalence in Sweden by 40%, it is banned in the EU and therefore cannot be purchased in the UK. And, although proven highly effective, efficient and as safe as totally quitting, Snus is nowhere near as acceptable as e-cigarettes are to consumers for smoking replacement.

Medical management of smoking cessation has been proven an abysmal failure in every respect - the very low success rate, the cost, and the fact that most patients return to smoking and risk death. Pharmaceutical interventions are proven virtually useless, with an average failure rate of around 95%. At least one pharmaceutical quit-smoking intervention is shown to harm and kill patients - but not a single incident of death or harm has ever been attributed to e-cigarettes.

Consumer harm reduction is orders of magnitude more successful in every respect: the success rate in switching, the cost, and the lives saved. Smokers who switch to an alternative such as an e-cigarette are likely to reduce their risk by 99% or more. There is nothing new about this approach, the use of Snus in Sweden has meant they now have the lowest smoking-related death rate in the developed world by a wide margin.

Because ECCA represents the largest grouping of current actual users of successful tobacco harm reduction solutions, the UK electronic cigarette user community of approaching 500,000* people (growing so fast that we expect that over 6% of UK smokers will have converted by 2013), ECCA is the most important stakeholder in tobacco harm reduction in the UK.

Our members demand their right to be heard, and we will ensure that their voice is heard.

* Measured by ASH UK at 310,000 in 2010