Latest news with #PhysiciansforaSmoke-FreeCanada
Global News
27-05-2025
- Health
- Global News
Ban flavoured vapes now, anti-smoking groups urge Carney's government
Several tobacco control organizations are renewing their calls on the federal government to put a ban on flavoured vaping products as a new Parliament begins and a new health minister settles into their role. That comes as data over recent years has shown half of Canadian young adults have tried vaping, and after previous health minister Mark Holland took aim at the tobacco industry during the previous Parliament, telling it to 'stay the hell away from our kids.' Action on Smoking and Health, the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada called on Health Minister Marjorie Michel to finalize regulations first put forward in 2021 that would prohibit flavours, except for tobacco, mint and menthol, from being added to e-cigarettes. However, the group said it wants those regulations further strengthened to prohibit all but tobacco flavours and for it to happen in Michel's first 100 days in office. Story continues below advertisement 'Let's be clear, we're not calling for a ban on all vaping products, but only for a ban on flavoured versions that make them interesting and highly appealing to youth,' said Flory Doucas, co-director of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. Flavoured vaping products have been a topic of discussion among governments for years and the regulations noted by the groups was a promise made by Ottawa in 2021. Three years later, no such restrictions exist on a national level, but the promise has remained amid a broader federal push to crack down on the sale and appeal of new forms of nicotine for youth, including a ban on flavoured nicotine pouches put in place last year. 'We cannot afford for this government to sit on its hands or take the same laissez-faire approach to the tobacco and nicotine industry as its predecessor,' Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke Canada, said in a press release. 3:31 Easy access to vape devices for B.C. students Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, went on to criticize tobacco companies. Story continues below advertisement 'Tobacco and nicotine companies are driving the youth vaping epidemic and they can't be trusted,' Hagen said Monday morning. Get weekly health news Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday. Sign up for weekly health newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'Canada's three largest tobacco companies recently conceded to a $32-billion penalty to provincial governments for decades of deceptive marketing behaviour. Despite this penalty, it's still business as usual for the industry.' That $32.5-billion settlement was approved by an Ontario judge in March and would see provinces, territories and former smokers compensated by JTI-Macdonald Corp., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. In October 2024, a spokesperson for then-minister of mental health and addictions minister Ya'ara Saks said the commitment remains, but that the delay was in part due to wanting to ensure a national framework works. Saks' office pointed to jurisdictions like Quebec, where it said the province's ban on flavoured vapes led to an accessible illicit market, adding that other jurisdictions' own plans would inform 'future action.' Quebec's ban prohibits the sale of any vape except for tobacco flavour and those that have no flavour or aroma. 1:36 Toxic metals in vapes linked with major health problems in youth, study finds Global News reached out to Michel's office for an update on the government's stance but did not hear back by publication. Story continues below advertisement Imperial Tobacco Canada's vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs, Eric Gagnon, on Monday told reporters that the company's stance is similar to the groups in terms of prohibiting anyone underage from vaping. He said it also supports the federal government's regulations to limit flavours to tobacco, mint and menthol and wants to see further restrictions, including on the size and volume of devices and addressing the 'growing online market.' 1:53 Canadian teens have highest vaping rates globally The company also said in a release that any regulations must be reviewed from an 'evidence-based scientific perspective.' Gagnon added that any regulations must be accompanied by enforcement, something he criticized the anti-tobacco groups for missing. 'Unfortunately, the health groups that spoke before believe their job is done once new regulation is introduced without any concern about the illegal market taking over,' he said. Story continues below advertisement The Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey released by Statistics Canada in September 2023 showed that nearly half of young adults aged 20-24 and one-third of 15- to 19-year-olds have tried vaping at least once. It also showed that almost 40 per cent of those 15 and older who vaped in the previous 30 days from when the survey was conducted said they had never smoked previously.
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Promised Canada-wide ban on vaping flavours increasingly unlikely, health groups warn
Nicotine control groups that have waited years for a nationwide ban on vaping flavours say they've now been given indications it won't happen — despite the minister responsible vowing last fall that the restrictions were coming "soon." Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, said she and representatives from a number of anti-smoking organizations met this week with a senior staff member for Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya'ara Saks. "We left the meeting with the firm belief that we are not going to see a ban on vaping flavours this year," she said. "We are greatly disappointed." Callard said the official gave a range of logistical reasons for why the restrictions weren't going ahead — including the limited time left to enact them as the Liberal government stares down a potential spring election. "We were told that this would not be one of the things that's prioritized in the next few weeks," she said. "I don't believe that the current circumstances in Ottawa are the real reason that it's not happening." Top public health doctors renew call for flavour ban The meeting comes the same week Canada's top public health doctors released a joint statement reiterating their call for the federal government to ban vaping flavours, saying they "remain significantly concerned by the continued high rates of nicotine vaping among Canadian youth." The council — which includes the chief medical health officers for Canada and the provinces and territories — has been recommending Ottawa ban vaping flavours for the past five years. Canada has one of the highest youth vaping rates in the world. Statistics Canada reports nearly half of all young adults have tried vaping. Health Canada first promised in June 2021 to restrict vape flavours to mint, menthol and tobacco, citing multiple studies that showed fruity and sweet flavours are more likely to appeal to youth and be seen by them as less harmful. The federal government then spent more than three years in consultations and was set to bring in those regulations in June 2024. That didn't happen. Instead, Minister Saks took multiple meetings with the nicotine and vaping industry. In October, after health groups called on her to step down, Saks told CBC News in an interview that she was not stalling the regulations. "I am seized with this," she said at the time. "I don't anticipate this is going to take much longer." WATCH | Last fall, addictions minister told CBC News a flavour ban was coming 'soon': Saks declined a request this week for an interview. Her office did not answer questions from CBC News about the current progress of the flavour ban or the meeting with nicotine-control organizations. In a statement, the minister's spokesperson, Yuval Daniel, wrote that "vaping flavours are going to be restricted." "We need to get this right to avoid further endangering Canadians and putting youth at risk," the statement said. "A patchwork approach, or one that we cannot enforce properly, would not solve the problem or risk greater harms," the statement continues. "In jurisdictions that have gone forward with a ban, we have seen industry exploit grey areas for their own gain." Saks previously told CBC News the federal government wanted to learn from Quebec's flavour ban in October 2023, and whether it had inadvertently encouraged an underground market. Plenty of evidence to warrant restrictions In absence of action from the federal government, several provinces and territories have brought in their own flavour bans: Quebec, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Robert Strang, said there's no reason to further delay a nationwide flavour ban, which he said is essential to ensure regulations are easier to enforce everywhere. "It's concerning. I recognize that the political process can sometimes be slow and winding, but certainly it is frustrating," he said. "We are giving our best advice to elected officials." Strang, who authored the most recent advisory from the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health calling for more action on vaping, said there is plenty of data and research to show banning flavours is a critical measure to protect youth. Flavoured e-cigarettes are more appealing to young people than older smokers, public health experts argue. (Ben Nelms/CBC) "We need to take quick and strong action. I don't think we need to take time to gather a lot more evidence, quite frankly," he said. Two thirds of teenagers who vape never smoked cigarettes, according to the most recent Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey. "We're creating a whole new generation of people addicted to nicotine. And nicotine itself is not a benign drug," Strang said. There is also emerging research that vaping can cause peripheral lung damage in a matter of years, compared with the more central damage that occurs after decades of smoking cigarettes, Strang said. "The claims that e-cigarettes are much safer than tobacco smoking are actually not well founded," he said. Vaping industry has fought regulations hard The vaping industry has come out hard against a flavour ban, arguing that it could create an illicit, unregulated market and make the product less appealing to adult smokers who are trying to find a safer alternative to cigarettes. But Strang said vaping has never been approved as a method to quit smoking. "It is my strong belief that there's certainly an industry influence on this," he said. David Hammond, a public health researcher at the University of Waterloo who studies population nicotine use, said research does show that adults are choosing vaping to quit smoking. It can be as effective as other methods like patches and gum, he added. "The problem is that vaping is much more popular among young people than it is among the older smokers. And it's really almost being branded as something that a 15-year-old uses rather than a 50-year-old," Hammond said. "Flavours have contributed to that." Hammond said that's why a flavour ban wouldn't just make vaping less enticing to youth; it could also make it more appealing to older smokers. "We have hundreds of different flavours on our market ... like cotton candy and blueberry ice and flavours that most people would look at and think, 'Geez, these are aimed at kids.'" Hammond said he and other public health experts have watched the federal government come close more than once to bringing in a flavour ban, only to pull back, saying that more consultation was needed. "I would have thought that this would be one of the easier areas of regulation," he said. "Tobacco companies own many of the biggest vaping brands in Canada," Hammond added. "They may not have the same political power they had in the 1950s and '60s, but they still do swing a pretty heavy club when they choose to do so." Callard, of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, said she worries that the slow pace of federal government action has enabled the tobacco industry to replace Canada's smoking epidemic with a vaping one. "It gets to a point that it's very hard to do something about it," she said. When vaping hit the market in 2018, Callard said, the federal Liberal government failed to act, allowing vapes to be sold relatively freely in the hopes the new product would help smokers quit cigarettes. "They never accepted the warnings that we gave them that young people were likely to pick them up at much higher rates than smokers," she said. "They created a mess. And now they're willing to leave office without cleaning it up. And that's the hardest bit for us."
