Getting Regulations Right on Vapour Products

MARK TYNDALL
Contributed to Vancouver Sun.
Published Jun 04, 2014
Source: click here

The rapid increase in the use of e-cigarettes, along with the proliferation of vape shops in the province, has occurred without any clear federal or provincial guidelines. On Thursday, British Columbia will enact the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act to provide a regulatory framework.

The rapid increase in the use of e-cigarettes, along with the proliferation of vape shops in the province, has occurred without any clear federal or provincial guidelines. On Thursday, British Columbia will enact the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act to provide a regulatory framework.

The stated goal of this legislation is to ensure that youth are not encouraged to use vapour products. As the vast majority of people who smoke begin in their teens, it is critical to prevent direct marketing and easy access to nicotine-containing products early on.

Smoking is one of the biggest public health challenges facing Canada and a great many countries around the world. Because smoking has been with us so long and the health impacts are so insidious, it is not approached with the urgency it deserves. Cigarettes are a legal product that kill more than 50 per cent of the people who use them long term and is estimated to cost the Canadian health care system $4.4 billion annually. While British Columbia can claim that overall smoking rates are the lowest in Canada, there is little solace to be found in having 14 per cent of the population using a product that will kill more than half of them.

There are a number of tobacco-control initiatives that have contributed to a gradual reduction in smoking across Canada. These include public education, increasing taxation, restrictions on advertising, graphic packaging, smoke-free work and public spaces, programs to help people quit and nicotine-replacement therapies.

However, progress has been slow and many of the current interventions have run their course or are becoming less effective. This is especially the case among the poor and disadvantaged who have disproportionately high smoking rates and are much less effected by current interventions. E-cigarettes should now be considered as an essential tool to reduce the exposure to tobacco smoke while delivering the nicotine that drives the addiction.

It remains to be seen what this legislation will mean to the sales of e-cigarettes. Besides strengthening the restriction of sales to people age 19 or older, ensuring that youth cannot see the product or promotions in stores, and limiting the number of people vaping in the adult-only premises to two at a time, these regulations will not require major changes at the retail level.

Stores were not supposed to be selling these products to minors in the first place and the vast majority of customers are people who want to reduce or quit smoking cigarettes and likely would not be dissuaded by the absence of product displays in storefronts.

While the regulations are timely and important, it should not be lost that e-cigarettes are an important alternative to smoking cigarettes. If all smokers were to switch to e-cigarettes there would be dramatic improvements in people’s health and massive cost savings to our health care system. The demand for alternatives to smoking tobacco is not only driven by public health concerns but by the majority of people who currently smoke. It is a moral imperative that people be given alternatives that could improve their health and potentially save their lives.

Now that there are regulations in place to help prevent the use of e-cigarettes among young people, we must turn our efforts to increasing the access and uptake of e-cigarettes to the nearly five million chronic tobacco smokers in Canada. The current regulations leave the door open for the use of e-cigarettes to reduce the harms of tobacco that could facilitate a major public health breakthrough. Regulations are needed to ensure that the e-cigarettes themselves meet quality standards, that the vapour is free from other toxins, that the advertised nicotine content is accurate and that the health and social impacts are closely monitored.

Smokers should have the right to use a product that is safer. In Britain, the U.K.’s Royal College of Physicians stated that vaping is likely to be at least 95 per cent less harmful than smoking. While it is critical that we enhance our capacity to monitor the long-term health and social effects of e-cigarettes, we know all too well that the long-term effect of smoking tobacco is chronic illness and death.

With this legislation in place, it is now time to focus our efforts on how e-cigarettes can be used to reduce tobacco use among those already smoking and who are desperately seeking alternatives.