It is beyond comprehension to see that Health Canada is calling for a ban on the sale and distribution of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in this country.
This decision is totally counterproductive to the efforts of Health Canada, who have long been in the vanguard internationally in the reduction of tobacco consumption. While the results of Canada’s sustained efforts through educational campaigns have generally been positive in reducing smoking prevalence right up to and including the year 2004, the decreasing trend has halted and smoking rates in Canada have remained the same ever since draconian smoking bans were instituted in many provinces . As history has taught us, coercive methods have never yielded positive results.
Apart from the public reacting negatively to coercion, another likely reason why the remaining citizens who smoke may be reluctant to quit their habit is the lack of realistic alternatives to the act of smoking itself. Public health authorities tend to see smoking as a function of addiction to nicotine, and pharmaceutical companies have cashed in on that perception by marketing various nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) devices. These products, in the form of variously flavored chewing gum in colorful packaging, or lozenges, patches, or even inhalers, are advertised extensively in all media. No doubt NRT sales are high and profitable, but the long term success rate of quitting smoking by use of NRT products as they are marketed now is a dismal 1.6% .
Electronic cigarettes are seen by many as a more attractive alternative to the NRT products available from the pharmaceutical industry and a viable alternative to those who wish to continue profiting from the benefits of nicotine. The use of the e-cigarette simulates the physical acts and sensations characteristic of smoking, including holding a cigarette-shaped device, inhaling nicotine vapor from it, and exhaling propylene glycol vapor. This vapor is a relatively inert gas which is odorless and does not linger in the air around the e-smoker. There is no environmental smoke produced by e-cigarettes therefore there is no annoyance to by-standers.
The popularity of the e-cigarette has spread virally through means such as word of mouth and internet forums. Large numbers of people around the world claim that use of e-cigarettes has helped them quit or cut down on their smoking and that it provides a degree of comfort, satisfaction, and convenience to those who do not wish to give up nicotine intake for various reasons.
In light of all of this, it is beyond disappointing to see that Health Canada is calling for a ban on the sale and distribution of electronic cigarettes in this country. It is absurd that Health Canada would keep it legal to smoke tobacco and ban the marketing of e-cigarettes, which offer an effective alternative and we are not alone to feel this way.
Contrary to conventional cigarettes emissions, E-cigarette vapor only contains two chemicals: nicotine and glycol propylene. Nicotine is generally accepted as relatively harmless by authorities, and is an approved legal substance. After all, NRT products, some of which are inhaled nicotine, are allowed to be freely marketed over the counter with no legal age for purchase and Health Canada has either authorized or is in the process of authorizing clinical trials of such nicotine products on pregnant women (5). Propylene glycol is approved as an additive for various foods, is used as a preservative substance to maintain moisture in products, and has been animal tested (including on simians, not just laboratory rats) as relatively harmless when inhaled. =
The electronic cigarette is in essence a nicotine delivery device in the same mould as pharmaceutical NRT products. What is it in the combination of nicotine and propylene glycol that has Health Canada thinking that e-cigarettes are more hazardous than tobacco and NRT products such as inhalers? Surely e-cigarettes, which are neither tobacco products nor pharmaceutical products, should be permitted to be marketed and distributed freely providing they are not advertized as therapeutic devices.
Unable to comprehend what motivated Health Canada to ban e-cigarettes while keeping tobacco and pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapy as well as the dangerous drug Chantix legal, I can only conclude that the only parties worthy of protection from Health Canada are the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries whose profits are threatened with the advent of this smart invention that had the potential of reestablishing harmony between smoking and non-smoking citizens and bringing much needed business back in our hospitality sector.
Health Canada should rethink its e-cigarette policy immediately, in the interest of the people they represent as opposed to the financial interests of powerful corporate lobbies.
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Posted by KevinM on May 31, 2009 at 03:42 AM
In a recent poll it was declared that 60% of those polled supported a smoking ban in public spaces. We see these type of polls all the time in crafted ad agency news releases, without ever considering who is paying to promote the news? Despite what the lobbies are promoting, a bar is not a public place it is a private property where you are invited to enter if the atmosphere suits your tastes.
The story within the story here is the fact that only 20% of adults smoke and almost double that amount consistently vote as opposed.
The good news? There are still some out there not caught up in the anti-smoker, anti fat, anti person, Bigot Bandwagons with enough sense to see oppression for what it is. No one and no community gains by a government protecting us from ourselves.
By hired lobbies billed as "grass roots" who dictate political correctness from the top down. Mercenaries and terrorists armed with twisted numbers and statistical realities, generously paid with our tax dollars the Government is toying with a divide and conquer strategy taking charge of our lives and the relationship that would have them working for us.
Regulations of this form take on the presumption of guilt reverse the right to a trial and reverse the onus of proof. Punishment without conviction is a profit center, once only permissible in places where we have no other avenues, such as the freedom of informed consent protected with a sign on the door.
If you have a peanut allergy you are protected from an immediate danger with signs and packaging yet a sign on the door of a bar is not even an option on the table here?
Surely if there is any need to protect freedom and equal rights, we can do much better than promoting hatred to excuse this opportunistic ignorance, by the useful idiots we pay dearly to manage our affairs.