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Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion: Health Canada should thank business for great smoking news
By Ian Irvine In Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats described how 'but to think is to be full of sorrow/And leaden-eyed despairs.' Such pervasive, perpetual gloominess sounds exactly like Canadian health officials contemplating the latest statistics on smoking, which are in fact spectacularly good news. Smoking has not yet been fully extinguished, but millions or smokers have quit and switched to lower-risk products. Yet 'woe is us!' groan the officials. To be precise, Statistics Canada surveys indicate that between 2017 and 2022 the smoking rate fell by just over four percentage points of the population while the vaping rate increased by three. About a million Canadians changed their nicotine status in a mere four years. Daily smoking among teens is now less than one per cent. That is not a typo: yes, less than one per cent. In all likelihood, the number of smokers is down another couple of hundred thousand since 2022, which means smokers now out-number vapers by less than two to one — and falling. Let's raise our glass to that, if the alcohol ascetics will permit. This rapid and unprecedented decline in smoking has brought no joy to anti-nicotine purists. Ottawa's medium-term goal is at most a five per cent smoking rate by 2035, but self-styled health groups want to obliterate all nicotine use, not just cigarettes, regardless of the relative harm associated with each product. Until nicotine is banished the purists will continue in 'leaden-eyed despair.' Driven by these interests, Ottawa and the provincial capitals have done their utmost to prevent the substitution of low-risk nicotine products for cigarettes. Primarily, it is the private sector that continues the fight for consumer and citizen sovereignty. A handful of e-juice producers and importers and a thousand-plus vape shops, most run by small entrepreneurs, have given the Canadian public what it wanted: nicotine in a non-lethal, non-combusted format. This sector of the economy is responsible for one of the great improvements in health in the modern era. The decline in smoking brought about in the past few years should reduce tobacco-related deaths by several thousand persons per year down the road. Even Big Tobacco has come to the party, with vapes, heated tobacco products and pouches. JUUL, a true innovator in the vape space, foundered on stupidity. But VUSE, STLTH and VEEV vapes are available in gas stations and convenience stores, giving smokers an alternative. The leading heat-not-burn product, IQOS, is enjoying major success worldwide. In several European cities it accounts for a third of the nicotine market, and in Japan its introduction coincided with a decline in cigarette sales of about 50 per cent over an eight-year period. Oral nicotine pouches are also on the market now, the most well-known being Zonnic — a tobaccoless product made from synthetic nicotine and vegetable matter. Unfortunately, it was launched ham-handedly: its ads showed young adults having a fun time on nicotine, which gave the federal health minister at the time all he needed to consign pouches to pharmacies. Our lowest toxin nicotine product is now the hardest to access. Thank your federal government for that. In response to the hugely positive downward trend of tobacco use, the Brahmins in Ottawa have decreed that under the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act implementation a vendor can be prosecuted for telling a buyer what the U.K.'s Royal College of Physicians has said for a decade: that vapes carry about five per cent of the risk of combustibles. They have also decreed that buyers may purchase only low-nicotine vapes and that low-risk products must be in plain packaging and out of sight lest smokers see them. At the same time, just about every medical group in Canada continues to wage war on the greatest quitting device ever invented. The provinces are no better. Most disfavour reduced-harm products, some avidly so. The most strident are British Columbia and Quebec, whose restrictions run to volumes. Of course, these two provinces also have the highest rate of alcohol-use in Canada. The oenophiles in Quebec City and West Van elect governments that are high on alcohol, but low on harm reduction from tobacco. The contradiction isn't a mystery. Smoking is a lower-class thing for the stressed, the mentally ill and others who seldom are members of wine-tasting groups in Outremont. William Watson: The throne speech should be short, sweet and backward-looking Opinion: The embassy murders — some stakeholders are more equal than others So let us celebrate the private sector. It has stepped up and continues to fight on difficult terrain, while governments and the privileged slouch only grudgingly and reluctantly to a new and better reality. Ian Irvine, an economics professor at Concordia University, has worked as a consultant to both the private sector and the federal government on alcohol and tobacco. Some of his recent research has been funded by Global Action to End Smoking. 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Time Business News
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Business News
Time Travel: Why Is It Ideal for the Escapist In You?
There are mainly three traits that every individual possesses- The optimistic trait, which makes us think and see the positive around us. The pessimistic trait, which makes us think and see the negative around us. The excapist trait, which makes us feel the urge to cut everything and everyone off, and travel somewhere unknown. A place where there's nothing besides serenity. Sadly, in this age of fierce competition, you often hesitate to let the escapist take the center stage. However, it's utterly necessary for you to listen to your escapist self! That's because the daily dose of monotony can wear off your mental well-being, and escapism is the best way to revitalize your senses. Now, what if we tell you that time travel might be the ideal way to feed your hunger for escapism? Because the escapist in you longs for some surreal experience. And therefore, using time travel spells is actually a great way to satisfy your craving that no earthly journey can provide you! Let's take a closer look. John Keats, in his Ode to a Nightingale, has beautifully described the concept of escapism through the verses. Here, too, you'll witness how the poet explains how the Nightingale's song transports him to a make-believe world, where he forgets about all his life's sufferings. However, at the same time, he also realizes that he is rooted in reality, and therefore, feels an extreme agony at not being able to fully immerse himself in his imaginative world. But that's just the finest instance of literature! Practically, the only way to escape might be to go on a long holiday to some deserted place to find yourself. Now, just think about traveling through time to an unknown world somewhere in the past! Doesn't it sound like the best place to escape and rewind? Well, through genuine spells to travel back in time, you can make it possible! And honestly, it is one of the best ways to soothe the escapist inside you! Why? Because escapism, in its true essence, is traveling to a make-believe world! When you traverse through timelines, you're actually living the make-believe world in reality. That's one of the best things that you can present to yourself to forget the monotony and pain of earthly practicalities! Not just that, but escapism is all about gaining a whole new experience. And what can be a better experience than using a go back in time spell, and witnessing how things were in the past, right? We understand that it's 2025, and frankly, it's a little hard to believe when you see the context of magic spells around! However, to tell you the truth, spells do work. You just have to know the right way. So, to help you out, here are a few steps that can guide you to achieving your dreams- The first and foremost thing that you need to do is to find a genuine spell caster who can help you. Reputed organizations like Jessica Black's Spell Collections have an exclusive collection of real light magic spells that work wonders to help you traverse through time! The second and most important thing for you to do is to believe in the process! Incantations serve as a connection to the supernatural world. And for them to work, you have to put your trust in it. So, trust the process and keep an optimistic mindset. That's the only way you'll witness the true powers of magic if you buy time travel spells online. While optimism and pessimism are necessary to help you navigate reality, escapism is the way you recharge and revitalize yourself and your senses. And no matter what you do, escapism is the element that helps you maintain your mental equilibrium. So, if you want to feed the escapist inside, and are looking for a change your life spell, make sure to try time travel spells once in your life! The moment you experience the make-believe world in real life is the moment you'll feel a profound sense of serenity enveloping your senses, and the thing that you've merely dreamt of will become a tangible reality! TIME BUSINESS NEWS
The Guardian
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I see things in very short bursts': blind painter Bianca Raffaella on her explosive still lifes – and being mentored by Tracey Emin
Bianca Raffaella is showing me the huge canvases she has painted for her debut solo show Faint Memories when a strange realisation hits me. I can see these beautiful depictions of petals and stems in their full, widescreen splendour – and she can't. The 32-year-old was born with congenital toxoplasmosis and is registered blind: her vision is largely limited to her left eye, through which she can only see things closer than a metre and for brief moments of time. 'When I back away from a painting, I never see it in full,' says Raffaella. 'I work really close, and I will see things for a fraction of a second and then it's lost.' Being partially sighted to such a degree can be an overwhelming and isolating experience, she says. Yet it hasn't prevented her from becoming an artist. In fact, the works in this show all come from Raffaella's attempts to convey her unique way of perceiving the world. The paintings in Faint Memories focus on nature – flowers, petals, stems, sometimes in a ghostly white, at other times dotted with little bursts of colour. But spend time with them and you realise there's more going on here than simple still lifes. The painting Viewless Wings (all the paintings are named after lines from John Keats's Ode to a Nightingale) might look like an explosive bloom of dusty pink, green and white but it's actually a depiction of just one flower. Raffaella has a condition called pendular nystagmus which means her eyeball, and hence her vision, is in constant motion. That one flower will move around, captured only for a brief moment at a time. 'I see things in very short bursts, almost like a pulse,' Raffaella explains. Elsewhere, Raffaella uses silver leaf paint in order to depict the light interference in her visual field ('there's a constant kind of a halo or shard of white that comes into my field and I'm trying to see around it') and thick impasto as a nod to her reliance on touch. With such limited sight, often Raffaella's best way of observing a flower is through her hands. 'A small object in your hand has a vast amount of information,' she says, 'but fully sighted people often don't touch things because their sight is their primary sense.' Viewers are not permitted to touch these artworks, although often they express a desire to do so. Raffaella is hoping to create a properly tactile work for her next show, maybe out of paper, that will slowly degrade as viewers interact with it – much like a flower eventually disintegrates after being rolled around in someone's hand. Nature, sight, joy – Raffaella's work reminds us that these things are transitory for all of us. She perhaps just has a keener sense of it: as a child reading braille, she remembers how the pages might last for only three or four reads before the fragile dots were pressed back into the paper surfaces. Raffaella grew up around art – her mother is a painter, too, and Raffaella recalls feeling a closeness with Monet's water lilies, which were painted when cataracts were limiting the French impressionist's own vision ('He just picked out what he could see'). A decision to pursue fashion as a career ended up leaving her feeling creatively unfulfilled ('It was so commercial'). And so, during lockdown, she started painting seriously. Raffaella has a unique way of working, scooping up acrylic in her hands and pushing it around the canvas with her fingers and thumbs. 'Your hands are a great tool to use,' she enthuses. 'The marks you can get with just, like, a thumb gesture or a scratch of a line.' She stays close to the canvas, feeling her way around it, applying wet paint to a wet board. Raffaella likes to work quickly: ideally, a painting will be completed within a day because it's all mapped out in her head and once things start to dry it's harder to navigate. Sometimes, she can lose her place on the canvas – which is frustrating, but often helps relay her perspective more accurately. She points out to me how none of the flowers in her work are grounded – they float without soil or grass or even stems sometimes, a reflection of her untethered experience. In 2023, Raffaella started a place at TEAR, the artist residency run by Tracey Emin, and she credits Emin – who was unaware of Raffaella's backstory when she first saw her art – with having a 'transformative' effect on her work: 'I learned so much about who I wanted to be as an artist, what story I wanted to tell and how I wanted other low-visioned artists to be able to tell their own stories, too.' During a recent talk about Raffaella's work, Emin told the audience: 'There are people who can see everything – they can see out into space with 20/20 vision. But they can't make beautiful, soulful art.' Indeed, while Raffaella's paintings emanate the joy of nature, there's also a sadness to them: she's painting the world as she sees it, but also conveying a sense of what she's lost. 'I'm a really positive person,' says Raffaella. 'But there are moments where I wish I could access things that I know, or can imagine, a fully sighted person will just take for granted.' A partially sighted painter is not something everyone understands. Raffaella is often asked why she doesn't turn to sculpture instead – to make use of her well-developed sense of touch. But there's nothing more horrible, she says, than having clay drying over your fingers when you rely on them so heavily to interact with the world. Others have suggested that, with her limited vision, she could create abstract works instead, perhaps not realising that the artist behind these delicate paintings has a steely determination to her, too. 'Why would I be an abstract artist?' she says with a smile. 'I want to paint what I relate to! Because when you paint what you relate to, that's your purest identity.' Bianca Raffaella: Faint Memories is at Flowers Gallery, London, until 15 March
