Letters to the editor, Aug. 8: ‘Travelling our great country should be a must before one can claim to be truly Canadian'

Globe and Mail

21 hours ago

Re 'The harm reduction approach should apply to tobacco, too' (Aug. 5): I smoked for years on and off before switching to vaping, which I stopped several years ago. We shouldn't just see it as harm reduction.
There's certainly evidence that vaping is 'safer' than smoking. I still find it wildly irresponsible to say that virtually no one has died from it. Directly, maybe not. But in 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 2,807 cases of 'e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury' and attributed 68 deaths to it. Hardly 'zero, or close to it.'
One feature of vaping may actually make it more dangerous than smoking: lack of consumption control. When I smoked, I knew pretty precisely how much I was smoking, and I could only do it outside.
Vaping I could do pretty much anywhere, any time. I still have no idea how much nicotine I absorbed.
That's the opposite of harm reduction. It's actually terrifying.
Jade Schiff Ottawa
We do not know how harmful vaping is. With tobacco, it takes decades for lung cancer to appear.
Late into the 20th century, smoking rates were at about 50 per cent of the adult population in Canada and the United States. It took until the 1950s for doctors to document the harm; the long gap in causation was deceptive.
Smoking rates in Canada have declined markedly to 12 per cent thanks to smoke-free spaces, high taxes, warnings and the advertising ban. In Britain, there is a bill before Parliament to get numbers down further by raising the minimum age to which merchants can sell cigarettes by a year each year – and creating a 'smoke-free generation' by stopping most young people from starting.
And why would anyone believe cigarette companies that say vaping is safe? These very people denied any causal effect of smoking for decades.
Lynn McDonald CM, former MP, author, Non-smokers' Health Act, 1988; Toronto
Nicotine is not 'relatively harmless' as promulgated by the tobacco industry.
It is more addictive than alcohol. It promotes cancer by angiogenesis (although it may not actually cause it) and has been banned as a pesticide in the European Union because it is too toxic for the environment – but not too toxic, apparently, for the human lung.
Now sweetened, flavorful nicotine pouches are causing an increasing number of youth and children to attend hospital due to nicotine poisoning. If this is a relatively harmless drug, I would hate to see a toxic one.
James Wigmore Forensic toxicologist, author, educator; Toronto
As a retired public health nurse who has worked in the prevention of tobacco use and with cessation among people who want to quit smoking, I find this opinion a disservice to youth and the consequences of nicotine addiction.
Once neuro pathways are developed in youth by consuming nicotine and other chemicals, they are in place for a long time. They make individuals vulnerable to every kind of nicotine, including the smoking of tobacco.
Quitting smoking is difficult and there are aids for quitting besides vaping. However if we want to compare vaping to antidepressants as harm reduction, then at the least it should be by prescription only for individuals wishing to quit.
Carol McDonald Ottawa
I am all for harm reduction when it comes to the use of any addictive, potentially harmful substance. Far too often, blanket prohibition and abstinence-only approaches do not work.
As for vaping as a harm reduction tool, I would add to the equation the importance of education around appropriate use. For instance, many people do not realize that some vaping products contain more nicotine than a cigarette.
For longtime smokers wishing to quit tobacco with the help of vaping products, nicotine replacement programs in communities, at the least, could educate folks on how to use such products appropriately to meet their goals.
A 'just say no' approach did not work for Nancy Reagan in the 1980s, and it most certainly does not work now.
Jayce Sale Guelph, Ont.
There is an assumption that people who use vapes would smoke cigarettes if it wasn't an option. As a high-school teacher for more than 30 years, it is my observation that smoking had almost disappeared from teen life before vaping brought it back.
This is like saying it's fine to drink six Diet Cokes a day, at least it's not drinking six beers. I doubt that people who drink Diet Coke would replace it with beer if it didn't exist.
Baruch Zohar Moncton
Re 'How the 'discovery' of fentanyl changed North America' (Opinion, Aug. 2): Fentanyl depresses the respiratory centre while keeping the cardiovascular system stable. It has been an ideal intraoperative anesthetic agent for more than 50 years.
A patient is sedated and unconscious with airway intubated, lungs ventilated and pain reflexes dampened. An awake person will stop breathing while conscious and die if the antidote (nalaxone) is not given or repeated until the drug is metabolized.
I don't think fentanyl should be used outside of the operating room. I believe such drug dealers are guilty of murder or attempted murder.
Elizabeth Oliver-Malone MD, FRCPC (retired); Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
Re 'Home turf' (Letters, July 31): I emigrated to Canada from Britain in 1977 and promised myself then that I would see my new country. Little did I realize what that meant.
I have since visited each province and territory several times, every major city and north of the Arctic circle. The education is priceless, the beauty astounding and the variety of landscapes, wildlife, cultures and attitudes reinforces what a massive country we live in.
There are no ugly places, each represents its own history. Some have been more favourably endowed than others, but that is the beauty of living in a country still exploring itself, discovering what works where.
Unless we visit and listen, we cannot begin to understand our country and our cultures, so different between urban and rural, between provinces and particularly between north and south.
Travelling our great country should be a must before one can claim to be truly Canadian.
Gordon Moore Toronto
Re 'The biggest and quirkiest roadside attractions to see on your next Canadian road trip, according to readers' (Online, Aug. 3): No Wawa Goose? You snubbed the big fella and he is not pleased.
Beware the wrath of his descendants next time you visit a park.
Tom Driedger Toronto
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