“ They should recognise that nearly everything they do in opposition to vaping has the effect of protecting the cigarette trade from competition , inhibiting switching from smoking to vaping and therefore prolonging the epidemic of smoking-related disease .”
Bates and Sweanor warned that measures taken to tackle ‘ trivial risks ’ to young people could create ‘ lethal consequences ’ for millions of adults .
They said : “ For a coherent public health approach , the link between adult and youth behaviours must be recognised .
“ The discussion paper is grounded in a naïve view of risk behaviours and the effect of regulation .
“ Like all measures with a prohibitive element , such restrictions trigger changes in how products are supplied , who supplies them and at what price .
“ We are not arguing that youth vaping should be of no concern , but that it is a relatively innocuous behaviour compared to , say , binge drinking , driving under the influence or regular use of cannabis .
“ Youth vaping presents a far lower and probably transient public health risk compared to the risks facing adults who have already smoked for years or decades .
“ The danger of focussing on ‘ youth vaping ’ is that it distracts from the primary public health mission and leads to more cancer , cardiovascular and respiratory disease .”
They said Canada ’ s public health policy goals should ‘ focus on minimising the severe health and economic consequences of tobacco use , predominantly arising from smoking .’
SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Bates and Sweanor say Health Canada could improve the health benefits of its tobacco and vaping laws by :
• Setting a clear overarching goal focused on morbidity and mortality and , therefore , focussed on reducing smoking at all ages .
• Making policy that recognises that vaping and other smokefree products represent a public health opportunity that should not be squandered .
• Recognising that vaping and other smoke-free products brought with them only relatively minor incidental risks , even if these attracted a high political focus and
• Taking a risk-proportionate approach to regulation and recognising the risks to a middle-aged adult smoker are far greater than risks , if any , to an adolescent vaper .
Clive Bates , Director , Counterfactual Consulting , London .
“ In mid-2018 , Canada was a leader with a consumer-orientated approach to tobacco harm reduction .
“ Health Canada had proposed publishing a range of informative statements about vaping and smoking that would have been a game-changer in public understanding and would have driven lifesaving and welfare-enhancing switching from smoking to vaping .
“ Instead , it was derailed by a flawed paper published in the BMJ and started to adopt the same moral panic mentality as lavishly funded American prohibitionists south of the border . This was a strategic error and should now be reversed .
“ The legislative review is an opportunity to take a more sophisticated view of the interactions between smoking and vaping , to consider harm reduction at all ages , and to rethink a policy towards nicotine , when consumed without smoking .”
David Sweanor , Adjunct Professor of Law , University of Ottawa .
“ Canada has an opportunity to leverage disruptive technology to dramatically reduce cigarette smoking and the resulting health catastrophe .
“ To do so our country must focus on science and reason and follow the lead we ’ ve now taken on harm reduction in dealing with opioids , cannabis and other drugs .
“ Allowing the policy agenda to be misdirected by a manufactured moral panic on vaping repeats the disaster of the War on Drugs that our country is now finally addressing .
“ The opportunity to prevent over a million premature smokingcaused deaths is there if we can only seize the opportunity rather allow inhumane abstinence-only advocates to seize up our regulatory agenda .”
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