Source: CLICK HERE

Even if you are not a vaper or smoker or even if you don’t care about smokers, Bill S-5 impacts YOU in the form of taxation for coverage of healthcare cost. The government of Canada allows the sale of deadly tobacco cigarettes that are killing nearly 37,000 Canadians every year. Shouldn’t information and accessibility to a product proving to be a significant harm reduction tool against smoking be more readily available and distributed freely to smokers?

Come on, Canada…  Either we SUPPORT Harm Reduction or we don’t.

With Bill S-5, the federal government is trying to pass legislation that targets electronic cigarettes and vaping. It hasn’t come into effect yet but did pass second reading and is now in committee so it’s important for Canadians to know what’s wrong with this bill.

First, it lumps vaping into the same category as smoking tobacco, but there’s a big difference between the two.

Vaping serves as a harm reduction tool because there’s no combustion involved as there is with tobacco. And while media and government tend to demonize electronic cigarettes, a U.K. study has shown it to be 95% less harmful than smoking traditional tobacco.

Derek From, a lawyer with the Canadian Constitution Foundation, wrote a report that compares vaping legislation across the country, so he knows a lot about the laws surrounding both vaping and tobacco.

According to the Canadian Journal of Public Health, the annual average health care cost per traditional tobacco smoker is $3,071 resulting in a direct health care cost of $4.4B per year. Further, they say the overall economic burden of smoking in 2008 was $18.4B.

Smoking rates have decreased since that time and by 2012 smoking rates decreased to 17.5%. To show what kind of savings taxpayers could realize with decreases in smoking, if that number was down to 12.5% like it is in B.C., this could save $2.8B annually.

Making the switch to electronic cigarettes could make that possible, but the government keeps getting in the way of Canadians accessing harm reduction.

Source: CLICK HERE

Woven into Canada’s draft federal vaping regulations is a contradiction, which could undermine every aspect of the legislation. If Bill S-5 is enacted ‘as is’ no person in Canada whether a vaper, retailer, e-liquid manufacture or doctor, lawyer and member of government could compare vaping to smoking in anyway, let alone state that vaping is less harmful than smoking.

Contravening the ‘no health claims and ‘no comparisons’ sections of Bill S-5 would be a criminal offense. But according to one of Britain’s top smoking cessation experts the real crime is that Canada’s federal vaping regulations would result in the death of thousands of smokers, if they receive the wrong message about vaping.

In this episode of RegWatch meet Louise Ross, the Stop Smoking Service Manager for Leicester City Council in England and learn how extraordinarily “vaping friendly” the UK really is—only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com.

RegulatorWatch.com – March 28, 2017.

Information about the briefing can be found in the Electronic cigarettes: A briefing for stop smoking services article.

Debunking Bad Press | Web Extra

When junk science is appealing it inevitably leads to a deluge of mainstream media coverage. A favorite target proves to be vaping. How to combat it?

In this RegWatch Web Extra hear from Louise Ross, the Stop Smoking Service Manager for Leicester City Council in England and learn how her Stop Smoking Service fights bad science in the news—only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com.

Professor Sweanor has thirty years of experience doing Canadian and global health policy work, with a particular focus on tobacco and nicotine. This work focuses on all areas of tobacco policy, but with greatest emphasis on the interaction of law and economics as determinants of health. Also has a long standing interest in nicotine harm reduction strategies.

Part 1 – Striking Balance

S-5 aims to balance the issue of allowing adults, particularly adult smokers, legal access to vaping products as a likely less harmful alternative to tobacco products, while still protecting youth from nicotine addiction and potential inducement to use tobacco products — Suzy McDonald, Health Canada

Part 2 – Big Issues

Health Canada plans on taking a staged approach to regulating vaping products. We’d like to focus first on labeling, particularly around information to consumers, the idea that nicotine is addictive and reporting requirements to better understand the market — Suzy McDonald, Health Canada

1. Vaping normalizes smoking
2. Gateway to Smoking
3. Dual Use (Continuing to smoke while using vaping products)
4. Nicotine is dangerous

In this interview, they discuss the World Health Organization / COP7 Conference this year in Delhi, India which (as was with COP6) closed their sessions to the media when Vaping Products were discussed.

When we saw the title of the episode, we thought we were about to be destroyed by yet “another” media organization because they didn’t take the time to do the research. We (the small vapour product businesses in Canada) are NOT “Big Tobacco” so obviously the title was unnerving.

Were we surprised when not only it was very informative but fact based. There were a few points of contention, but we are extremely pleased to see an investigative media organization take a serious look into what this industry actually is, who its people are and who they are not. We only hope that more, true journalism will follow

In their news release, “Ontario Taking Further Steps to Protect People from Second-Hand Smoke and Vapour, Strengthening Ontario’s Smoking and Vaping Legislation”, they state that the proposed changes will:

• Prohibit the use of e-cigarettes and the smoking and vaping of medical marijuana in all enclosed public places, enclosed workplaces, and other specified outdoor areas
• Expand the list of places where e-cigarettes are prohibited for sale
• Establish rules for the display and promotion of e-cigarettes in places where they are sold and prohibit the testing of e-cigarettes where they are sold.

In that release, Dipika Damerla, Associate Minister of Health and Long-Term Care is quoted as saying:

“It is important to ensure that Ontarians are protected from second-hand smoke and from the potential dangers of e-cigarettes. That is why we are proposing these changes and we look forward to the upcoming consultations with our stakeholders.”

In an article published by CityNews Toronto, Premier Kathleen Wynne stated:

“We have made a determination that smoking, whatever it is – whether it’s vaping, whether it’s medical marijuana, whether it’s cigarettes – that there should be restrictions on that,” she said Thursday. “And so the rules will apply to marijuana, to medical marijuana, to vaping as they do to cigarettes.”

The summary for the proposed new regulation is located here: Strengthening Ontario’s Smoking and Vaping Laws

These proposed regulations, as they have been presented, pose a significant negative impact both our industry and the Medical Marijuana industry. Specifically for our industry, they mean:

At the end of the day, we end up with continued propagation of non-evidence based implication and public stigma that vaping is the “same as smoking”. This is a very disappointing proposal from the Ontario Liberal Government that will result in a number of tragic unintended consequences. With these proposed regulations, they are aligning three (3) very different products within the same regulations: Tobacco, Personal Vapourizers (Electronic Cigarettes) and Medical Marijuana.

These regulations are only proposed at this point and are open for public consultation from now through April 24, 2016.

Consultation can be submitted in the form of:

• Comment through their website.
  (Click “Comment on this proposal via email” at the bottom of the page)
• Email sent to:
  SFOA-ECA-Consultations@ontario.ca
• Written Letter by mail:
  Population and Public Health Division
  Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
  777 Bay Street, Suite 1903
  19th floor
  Toronto, ON M7A 1S5

We have an opportunity to provide our input and we encourage everyone to participate in the consultation. Within each section of the Strengthening Ontario’s Smoking and Vaping Lawsproposed changes, the “Discussion” asks very specific questions. Simply answer those questions as clearly and concisely as possible. Maintain professionalism and courtesy or your input will not only be ignored but could potentially do damage to our already unstable position.

The Ottawa Morning show did an interview with David Sweanor, Adjunct Law Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Center for Health Law Policy and Ethics (and long time smoking cessation advocate) on March 11, 2016.

Some of his comments where:

from a public health standpoint, it’s wrong headed.

instead, what we end up with is more of this abstinence only approach of “Let’s treat it all the same” which is very much like saying “Why don’t we treat clean needles and dirty needles the same?” or “Why don’t we treat automobiles the same” regardless of whether they have safety features?

We differentiate on risk in public health and we really need to do that when we deal with issues of nicotine and this isn’t doing that. It’s doing the opposite

One of the problems that we have is if we send a message to people that we’re going to treat these the same even though there’s a huge difference in risk, we simultaneously convince a lot of people who are vaping that “why bother? I may as well be smoking.” and it convinces a lot of smokers that may otherwise have switched, to not.

If you’re really worried about having incense burning or a candle on a table in a restaurant, yeah, there’s risk. They’re just small enough that we really don’t worry about them. The big risk we have here is that we’re dissuading people from getting off combustion.

One of the things that we know about people trying to quit smoking is, the two strongest indications of an unsuccessful quit attempt are to be put in a place where there’s lots of cigarettes and being put in a place where there’s smokers. If you combine those two, you chance of successfully quitting smoking is very small.

We’re almost guaranteeing that people who are trying to get off the product that is our leading cause of preventable death are going to fail”

Sure we’ll allow alcoholics anonymous meetings but we’ll only allow them to be held in a pub, during happy hour.

I don’t think they are doing a health perspective. I think it is much more of a moralistic. It’s looking at nicotine as if it’s a sin, not that it’s a public health issue, we’re going to treat it all the same. And again, the parallel with the war on drugs are very telling.

There are areas where you wouldn’t want vaping going on, but there are an awful lot of areas where it really doesn’t matter. And then they say we’re going to ban it even on outdoor areas. I mean, why would you do that? What’s the health grounds for doing something like that?

We’re going to be sending a message that these products are far more dangerous than they really are.

The hope is that because this is just out for comment, that they will actually listen to the comments this time and they will move to more of a public health approach like we are seeing happen in the UK where E-cigarettes are credited with a huge impact on health and helping people quit smoking.

that absolutist morality almost invariable ends up supporting, reinforcing the very evil that you are trying to conquer.

They (The Ottawa Morning Show) requested comments from vapers, smokers and non-smokers. They can be contacted via Twitter (@OttawaMorning) or Email (OttawaMorning@cbc.ca).

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have quit smoking in the last few years with the aid of Electronic vaporizers. The government of Ontario has passed Bill 45 (Royal Assent on May 28, 2015) that effectively classifies these devices as a tobacco product. Vaping is NOT smoking. There is no smoke nor is tobacco in a vape and the science quickly catching up with the technology.

On January 1st regulations are supposed to go into effect (though no date has yet been proclaimed by the Lieutenant Governor) in Ontario that will harm the success of those wishing to make the switch from smoking to vaping. Retailers will no longer be allowed to have their customers test the products in store, which is essential to the success of each person quitting smoking. Vape retailers agree that the vaping industry needs regulations. They however believe that the regulations need to be based on fact and research and not hidden agendas. The Government of Ontario says that they want a smoke free Ontario but they have granted exemptions for big tobacco.

The Pending Regulations in Bill 45 do not make sense. We need fair and equitable regulations in Ontario. Calgary and Winnipeg have exemptions for Vape shops. Ontario should follow suit. Not only will this legislation put thousands of people in Ontario out of work, this legislation as is will deter thousands from quitting smoking in 2016.

There are many photos and videos that have been posted from the event but a couple of them are posted below.