WORLD VAPE DAY 2025: LET'S CELEBRATE OUR PROGRESS AND KEEP WORKING TOWARDS A SMOKE FREE CANADA
OTTAWA, ON, May 30, 2025 /CNW/ - 2025 marks the 20 th anniversary of the first vapour products in North America. Rights4Vapers wishes to celebrate the lives saved thanks to these safer nicotine products as well as acknowledge that there is still much work to do to ensure that they remain available to adults who are looking for an alternative to deadly cigarettes.
"Vaping saves lives. I hear it from Canadians who vape every day. I am one of them," said Maria Papaioannoy, spokesperson for Rights4Vapers, Canada's largest vaping and safer nicotine advocacy movement. "Despite being severely regulated. Despite misinformation campaigns from public health groups. Despite a continued and profound misunderstanding of nicotine. Despite push back against tobacco harm reduction. Vapour products are still here, thanks to the vocal advocacy of users."
Vapes were invented in China in 2003 to deliver nicotine as a vapour, arriving in Europe and the US and Canada around 2005.
Statistics Canada surveys between 2017 and 2022, revealed the smoking rate dropped by just over four percentage points, while the vaping rate increased by three. In just four years, approximately one million Canadians shifted their nicotine habits. Notably, daily smoking among teens has now fallen to under one percent.
"Canadians who vape know that these products have saved their lives. Every Canadian adult who smokes deserves access to safer nicotine choices. This could be a vape, a pouch, gum or patch," said Ms. Papaioannoy. "Nicotine is not the villain. Combustion is. We need drastic reforms in how safer nicotine products are regulated."
Rights4Vapers is calling on the federal government to develop a Safer Nicotine Act where all safer nicotine products are regulated fairly and equally, focusing on who needs them—not on who produces them. It's not the government's role to dictate how Canadians should quit smoking; it's the government's responsibility to ensure that all products are safe, regulated, and kept out of the hands of minors.
Safer nicotine products including vapour products and nicotine pouches are the best hope for millions of Canadians who smoke and are looking for an alternative to cigarettes. In 2021, Public Health England released its latest review of vapour studies. It found that "the best thing that a smoker can do is to stop smoking completely and the evidence shows that vaping is one of the most effective quit aids available, helping around 50,000 smokers quit a year."
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