West Australia has become the first region to ban e-cigarette devices outright. The Cancer Council of West Australia have been campaiging locally to ban eCigarettes and eLiquids for over 12 months and now have succeeded. The main reason behind the ban seems to be because they pose a threat at being “starter products for children and ex-smokers”, blanketing the fact that these devices help people already addicted to smoking regular cigarettes.
The man pictured here, 33 year old Vince Van Heerden from Perth Australia,has been fined by the Supreme Court $1,750 on June 24th 2014, with an additional $14,000 in court costs and legal fees, following a raid by health officials on Mr Van Heerden home. Whats more, when charged, he was only selling nicotine free e-Liquids, which the courts ruled to be illegal even without nicotine. He was originally acquitted of the charge, but later found guilty on appeal.
Justice Janine Pritchard, who was the sentencing judge, refused Mr Van Heerdens request for a spent conviction order, which would have meant he would not have a criminal record even though she stated that “Mr Van Heerden honestly and reasonably believed e-cigarettes were a healthy alternative to cigarettes”.
Mr Van Heerdens fight against the law also counted against him. He was campaigning in the media against the ban of e-Cigarettes and also against his court case, because of this Justice Janine Pritchard ruled “It is clear you do not consider the sale of e-cigarettes should be prohibited”.
“I will appeal, I know e-Cigarettes have changed smokers lives”
Mr Van Heerden is currently launching an appeal with west Australia’s court of appeal, to be seen by three judges. He has 21 days from the conviction date to submit this appeal.
“I have to fight on because honestly this isn’t about my business,” said Mr Van Heerden.
“If it was about my business I would have walked away from this a long time ago.”
“Everything I’m doing now is costing me money.”
“I know that my health has changed dramatically since using electronic cigarettes and I know the lives of dozens of people in real life that have been changed.”
Van Heerden rejected claims that he was not remorseful.
“They argue that I can’t feel remorseful while campaigning for the law to be changed,” he said.
“Well no, I am remorseful because I’m an honest, abiding citizen who never intended to break the law.
“So it’s very disappointing that inadvertently I have.”
This is plainly absurd he was selling non nic juice and they charged him on a technicality if this isn’t pulling at straws yet he as a retailer could sell nic in the form of tobacco which is proven too kill?
Is there no sense left in the world when we as a race look back on this in 50yrs time I think this will be known as the new dark ages when compassion and sensibility were disregarded. We all know its deadly too smoke tobacco yet we chose to start we know it’s deadly in so much that even retailers in the UK must cover up all signs of tobacco at the kiosk we know it’s deadly because study’s tell us so through the amount of ppl that have died from tobacco relate illness. Yet when we try too ween ourselves of this deadly drug and habit we are given poor choices by our health profession ones that are proven by studies to have a very low success rate and yet here comes some thing that has been shown to actually work better than every thing else that has come before it to actually help reduce and even cut out deadly tobacco and they go and make the use of it illegal who is it that is really behind this trend of making e-cigs illegal is it the tobacco firms or even the companies who make these other smoking cessation products that don’t work as well is it the governments because they are unable too tax the juices used in e-cigs?
I can only hope that one day we all are made aware of who it really is behind the death of millions of ppl who never gave up smoking because of the ban on e-cigs and that these ppl are brought to justice but I believe even if they were they’d still not get the proper judgment they deserve if they can persuade governments and the justice system to back them now then I very much doubt they will get any thing but a miserable fine that they can pay off with a f cough and a sly smile on their face as that start their own brand of e-cigs.