VITA - 4 billion Additional Cigarettes Expected to Hit Market When Health Minister Mark Holland Forces Flavour Ban

TORONTO, April 8, 2024 /CNW/ - The Vaping Industry Trade Association (VITA) denounces the federal government's renewed intention to ban flavors in vaping products. As presented, Minister Holland's proposal will not achieve the desired public health objectives and could, on the contrary, seriously harm a significant number of Canadian adult ex-smokers. The minister's current proposal, resurrected since it's abandonment in 2021, is not justified, even three years later.

A quiet resurrection of a three-year-old proposed flavour ban

The industry was recently invited to meetings with Health Canada to "reaffirm and update positions" submitted to a 2021 proposed order and regulation that would do 4 things:

• Prohibit all sweeteners in vaping products.
• Restrict all flavoured products to only those that fit in the category of "tobacco", "mint", and "menthol".
• Prohibits all but 84 chemical compounds that can be used in producing vaping liquids that fit those three categories – VITA noted in 2021 that roughly 10% of the approved compounds can be found on various Carcinogenic, Mutagenic, and Reprotoxic (CMR) lists.
• It introduces a subjective "Sensory Attributes" standard which was not thoroughly defined.

The meetings were held in March with a small group of stakeholders. There was no notice given, or opportunity afforded, to adult users of flavoured vaping products (who were very vocally opposed in 2021) to speak to the Ministry. VITA does not believe that this renewed interest was founded within the bureaucratic halls of Health Canada, or its Tobacco Control Directorate.

"This appears to be personal legacy project for the Minister of Health, supported strongly by his former peers at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Lung Association, and some smaller anti-smoking NGO's." –  Thomas Kirsop, Managing Director, Vaping Industry Trade Association.

Increasing Cigarette Sales

In 2023 Abigail Friedman, Alex Liber, Alyssa Crippen, and Michael Pesko (who sits on Health Canada's scientific advisory board for vaping) published a paper studying the effects of flavour bans in the United States and their impact on cigarette sales^[1]. The paper identified that for every 0.7 mL pod not sold due to a flavour restricting policy, 12 extra cigarettes were sold in the legitimate market in its place.

VITA reached out to independent businesses in the vaping product market and asked for the total sales volumes of all liquid bearing bottles, pods, and disposables along with their nicotine content for February. We excluded all liquids that would survive the proposed regulatory prohibition without reformulation and calculated the total average mass of flavoured nicotine sold per storefront in February 2024. We compared that mass to the mass of nicotine most likely to be found in the "0.7 mL pod" discussed in the Friedman et al. paper.

VITA's current conservative estimate is that on average the specialty vape store market (1800 storefronts) sells 38.4 kilograms of nicotine a day. If the concentration of the 0.7 mL pod referenced was 59 mg/mL, 10.9 million extra cigarettes a day could be sold in Canada if flavours are banned. That is nearly 4 billion extra cigarettes a year being purchased, lit up, and smoked by Canadians. This calculation does not account for the loss of flavoured product in the Gas and Convenience chain of roughly 24000 storefronts.

VITA is very concerned that the federal Minister of Health - seemingly at the behest of organizations who by title, oppose heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and C.O.P.D. - is pursuing a regulatory change that would set Canada's Tobacco Strategy back by years. This could result in a significant portion of Canada's 1.3 million adult users of vaping products relapsing to smoking; or to seek black-market solutions for harm reduction.

"If he forces this poorly thought-out regulatory package, Minister Mark Holland will certainly leave a legacy. It will be easily identifiable as it rises to prominence on a resurgent wave of smoking related morbidity and mortality." – Thomas Kirsop, Managing Director, Vaping Industry Trade Association.

About VITA

Canada's largest trade association representing the industry's manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers, VITA is committed to working with stakeholders and governments to set and uphold regulations for vaping products in Canada. VITA's approach is based on credible evidence, science, facts, and logic. In our efforts to responsibly grow and defend the category, the Association commits to collaborating with Health Canada and other regulatory bodies to identify best practices and to inform the development of evidenced-based regulations.

Please visit www.vitaofcanada.com for more information.

^[1]Friedman, Abigail and Liber, Alex C. and Crippen, Alyssa and Pesko, Michael, E-cigarette Flavor Restrictions' Effects on Tobacco Product Sales (January 29, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4586701 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4586701

SOURCE Association des représentants de l'industrie du vapotage (ARIV)

Media Enquiries can be directed to: Thomas Kirsop, Vaping Industry Trade Association, [email protected], [phone]