National Non-Smoking Week: Ottawa needs to clean up the youth vaping mess it created - not profit from it

$75 million of vaping tax revenues (2023/24) came from high-school students, an
amount that is more than twice as much as Health Canada spends on all activities to
reduce smoking or vaping.

EDMONTON, AB, MONTREAL and OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 22, 2025 /CNW/ - National Non-Smoking Week is an annual occasion to acknowledge the harms of tobacco industry products and to commit to individual and societal action to reduce them. Unfortunately, this year, tobacco control groups cannot point to any meaningful progress with respect to the ongoing youth vaping crisis. The organizations continue to call on the federal government to finalize three-and-a-half-year-old draft regulations banning flavours in vaping products.

"With the dissolution of Parliament clearly on the horizon, we are facing the potential failure of the federal government to finally correct the problems it caused when it adopted a free-market approach to vaping products in 2018," said Cynthia Callard, Executive Director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. "Their policy was to invite cigarette companies and others to expand the nicotine market by selling vaping products, under an initial 'light touch' regulatory framework that allowed these disreputable companies to reinvent their market and to recruit new generations to nicotine addiction."

As a result of this ill-advised policy, there was an immediate spike in youth vaping, a problem that persists to this day. More than one in five Canadian youths are vaping by the time they leave high school, and by the time they are in their early twenties over one in four are consuming nicotine.

Pleas of parents, school officials and health experts falling on deaf ears

For the past five years, health care professionals, parents, teachers, antitobacco advocates and youth coalitions have sounded the alarm on nicotine addiction and other harms caused by vaping.

This week, the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health reiterated their concern regarding "the continued high rates of nicotine vaping among Canadian youth," calling on Ottawa to "(reduce) access to, and appeal of, these products among young people (by) limiting flavoured products to tobacco flavour" in addition to other measures like requiring age-gating of vaping e-retailers and banning disposables. Health Canada has also advanced regulations to curb the use of designs, but like the flavour regulations, these have lain dormant on Health Canada's regulatory plan or have been dropped altogether.

Feds profiting from youth vaping

"The federal tax on vaping products was promised as a way to address youth vaping, but the measure proved to be insufficient as the government failed to include measures that prevent manufacturers from adjusting their pricing strategies or using design innovations to make nicotine increasingly cheaper," added Ms. Callard.

"While the youth vaping crisis persists, the federal government is clearly profiting from it. Federal revenues from vaping taxes reached $485 million in 2023/24. Young people, who make up 40% of the market, provided $200 million. Most shockingly, $75 million came from high-school students. This is more than twice as much as Health Canada spends on all activities to reduce smoking or vaping!"

Dismal health policy failure that is causing more harm than good

"The federal government's approach reversed decades of progress in protecting young people against nicotine addiction, creating more harm," said Flory Doucas, Codirector of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. "Its vaping policies have already harmed a generation of Canadian kids. Time is running out before this failure becomes their public health legacy."

"While smoking has continued progressive decline over the last decades, the introduction of vaping has not led to increased smoking cessation on the populational level. The federal government's vaping rules have led to a much greater increase of vaping among non-smoking youth than among smokers trying to quit. Since the Trudeau government took power in 2015, more young people are consuming nicotine overall," explains Ms. Doucas.

"We are looking at a stunningly dismal health policy failure while the federal government continues to dither and delay corrective measures – while raking in millions at the expense of Canada's youth," laments Les Hagen, Executive Director of ASH Canada. "Ironically, after systematically delaying flavour restrictions amid backroom and specious industry pressure, this same government announced this week the publication of guidelines to prevent tobacco industry interference in health policy!"  

Delays follow industry lobbying

Flavour restrictions in vaping products were initially drafted in 2021 but their finalization has been delayed for over three years. Their submission to cabinet was scheduled for last May, but coincidentally never moved forward following Addictions Minister Ya'ara Saks meeting with representatives of the vaping industry. Then, despite her October assurance in media reports that the measure would be finalized "as quickly as possible," the expected finalization did not occur by the end of 2024, again following meetings in the fall with the industry representatives. "Currently, there are no indications pointing to plans to finalize these flavour restrictions before the end of March, when a parliamentary non-confidence vote is anticipated."

"Meanwhile, tobacco and nicotine companies continue to lure young people with ever evolving alluring flavours and gimmicky designs as well as online promotions through websites and social media to which young people have access," concludes Mr. Hagen.

SOURCE Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control

Information: Cynthia Callard, 613-600-5794; Flory Doucas, 514-515-6780; Les Hagen, 780-919-5546