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 worldwide 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 approximately 300,000 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.

-- It is widely known that the pharmaceuticals don't work very well and sometimes kill patients. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that pharmaceuticals have a higher success rate 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, which although proven highly effective, efficient and as safe as totally quitting, is nowhere near as acceptable as e-cigarettes are to consumers for smoking replacement.

Pharmaceuticals are proven virtually useless, and both highly expensive in money terms and in the cost to human life - since almost all patients will return to smoking. At least one pharmaceutical quit-smoking intervention is shown to harm or kill patients - but not a single incident of death or harm attributable to e-cigarettes has ever been reported.

Because of this, and because ECCA represents the UK electronic cigarette user community (which has been growing so fast that we expect 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.