Nicotine control groups that have waited for years for a national prohibition of vapeo flavors say they have now received indications that it will not happen, despite the fact that the responsible minister promised the past fall that the restrictions would arrive “soon.”
Cynthia Callard, executive director of doctors for a smoke -free Canada, said that she and representatives of several anti -tabaco organizations met this week with a senior official of the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Ya’ara Saks.
“We leave the meeting with the firm conviction that this year we will not see a prohibition of vaping flavors,” he said. “We are very disappointed.”
Callard said the official gave a series of logistics reasons why the restrictions were not applied, including the limited time that remained to promulgate them while the liberal government contemplates possible spring elections.
“They told us that this would not be one of the priority things in the coming weeks,” he said.
“I don’t think the current circumstances in Ottawa are the true reason why this is not happening.”
The main public health doctors renew the call to prohibit flavors
The meeting occurs the same week that the main public health doctors in Canada They issued a joint statement reiterating their call so that the federal government prohibits vapeo’s flavors, saying that “they are still very concerned about the high and continuous vapeo rates of nicotine among young Canadians.”
The Council, which includes the main health officials of Canada and the provinces and territories, has recommended that OTTAWA prohibit the flavors of Vapeo. during the last five years.
Canada has one of the highest youth vapeo rates in the world. Statistics Canada informs that almost half of all young adults have tried vapeo.
Health Canada first promised in June 2021 to restrict vapor flavors to mint, mentol and tobacco, citing multiple studies that showed that the fruity and sweet flavors are more likely to attract young people and be seen by them as less harmful.
Then, the Federal Government spent more than three years in consultations and was planned to promulgate those regulations in June 2024.
That did not happen.
Instead, Minister Saks He held multiple meetings with the nicotine and vapeo industry.
In October, after health groups asked him to resign, Saks He told CBC News in an interview that she was not delaying regulations.
“I am imprisoned,” he said at that time. “I do not anticipate that this will take much longer.”
The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Ya’ara Saks, talks to Marina von Stackelberg of CBC News about how Ottawa wants to learn from the experience of Quebec in the prohibition of vapeo products with flavor before imposing national restrictions. The federal government promised the ban more than three years ago.
Saks rejected an interview application this week. His office did not answer CBC News questions about the current progress of the prohibition of flavors or the meeting with nicotine control organizations.
In a statement, the minister’s spokesman, Yuval Daniel, wrote that “Vapeo’s flavors are going to be restricted.”
“We need to do this well to avoid putting the Canadians at risk and young people,” says the statement.
“A fragmented approach, or one that we cannot apply properly, would not solve the problem or run the risk of causing major damage,” the statement continues. “In jurisdictions that have continued with a prohibition, we have seen the industry exploit the gray areas for their own benefit.”
Saks previously told CBC News that the federal government wanted to learn from the prohibition of Quebec flavors in October 2023 and if, without realizing it, it had encouraged a clandestine market.
Much evidence to justify restrictions
In the absence of action on the part of the Federal Government, several provinces and territories have imposed their own prohibitions of flavors: Quebec, Northwest territories, Nunavut, New Brunswick, Pei and Nueva Scotia.
The medical director of Nueva Scotia, Dr. Robert Strang, said that there is no reason to delay the prohibition of flavors nationwide, which, according to him, is essential to ensure that regulations are easier to make Fulfill everywhere.
“It’s worrying. I recognize that the political process can sometimes be slow and winding, but it is certainly frustrating,” he said. “We are giving our best advice to elected officials.”
Strang, author of the most recent notice of the Council of Medical Health Directors that asks for more measures against vapeo, said there are many data and investigations that show that prohibiting flavors is a fundamental measure to protect young people.
“We need to take quick and firm measures. Frankly, I don’t think we need to take the time to gather much more evidence,” he said.
Two thirds of the teenagers who vape never smoked cigarettes, according to the most recent Canadian survey on tobacco and nicotine.
“We are creating a whole new generation of people addicted to nicotine. And nicotine itself is not a benign drug,” said Strang.
There is Also emerging investigations That vaping can cause peripheral pulmonary damage in years, compared to the most central damage that occurs after decades of smoking cigarettes, Strang said.
“The statements that electronic cigarettes are much safer than smoking tobacco are not really well founded,” he said.
The vapeo industry has fought hard against regulations
The vapeo industry has manifested itself hard against the prohibition of flavors, arguing that it could create an illicit and unregulated market and make the product less attractive to adult smokers trying to find a safer alternative to cigarettes.
But Strang said that vapeo has never been approved as a method to quit smoking.
“I firmly believe that there is certainly an influence of the industry on this,” he said.
David Hammond, a public health researcher at the University of Waterloo who studies the use of nicotine in the population, said research shows that adults choose to vapor to quit smoking. It can be as effective as other methods such as patches and gum, he added.
“The problem is that vapeo is much more popular among young people than among older smokers. And in reality it almost brands it as something that a 15 -year -old uses instead of a 50 -year -old,” Hammond said.
“To this have contributed flavors.”
Hammond said that is why a prohibition of flavors would not only make vaping less attractive to young people; It could also make it more attractive to older smokers.
“We have hundreds of different flavors in our market … as cotton of sugar and ice cream of blueberries and flavors that most people would look and think: ‘Caray, these are aimed at children'”.
Hammond said he and other public health experts have seen the federal government closer more than once to prohibit flavors, just to retreat, saying that more consultations were needed.
“I would have thought that this would be one of the easiest regulation areas,” he said.
“The tobacco companies have many of the most important vapeo brands in Canada,” Hammond added. “They may not have the same political power they had in the 1950s and 1960s, but they still move a fairly heavy club when they decide.”
Callard, from doctors for a smoke -free Canada, told him that he is concerned that the slow rhythm of action of the federal government has allowed the tobacco industry to replace the Smoking epidemic of Canada with a vapeo.
“There comes a point where it is very difficult to do something about it,” he said.
When the vapeo reached the market in 2018, Callard said, the Liberal Federal Government did not act and allowed vapers to sell with relative freedom in the hope that the new product would help smokers to quit smoking.
“They never accepted the warnings that we gave them that young people would probably acquire them at much higher rates than smokers,” he said.
“They created a disaster. And now they are willing to leave the position without cleaning it. And that is the most difficult for us.”
