The e-cigarette dilemma
Michael Hampartzoumian is overcoming an addiction.
He started smoking when he was 16-years-old. He remembers holding a cigarette for the first time as he sat with his friends in a park at lunch.
“I knew it was bad. I just thought, whatever, I’ll just try it,” said Hampartzoumian.
It was a trial period that lasted three months; after that the intense cigarette cravings slowly kicked in. Hampartzoumian, now 24, tried to quit cold turkey when he was 22 but was unsuccessful. He said he wanted to quit, but had no interest in trying patches or lozenges. “It just seemed stupid to me,” he said.
“I knew it wouldn’t work and that it would be a waste of time and money.”
In 2013, he tried an electronic cigarette—a decision he says changed his life. At the outset, his friends teased him. Today, his mother questions his safety, but Hampartzoumian proudly says he’s a vaper. More important, he has overcome his addiction to tobacco cigarettes—but not nicotine.
Hampartzoumian, Ghulam Hasnain and Adey Bailey are three of the millions of people across the globe using electronic cigarettes to quit smoking, or at the very least decrease their intake of tobacco smoke.
Vaping
The act of inhaling vapour from an electronic cigarette. Often confused with “smoking” an e-cigarette, e-cigarettes do not produce smoke, but vapour.
Industry growth
We can call them ‘healthier’ cigs—at least that’s what pharmacist Hon Lik, inventor of the modern electronic cigarette, was trying to design. Lik came up with the idea after his father died of lung cancer. A smoker himself, Lik wanted to find a replacement that would transition him to a tobacco-free life. Now, while smoking has quickly become a dirty word—vaping, the term associated with e-cigarette use, is picking up steam.
A 2014 study by the Moores Cancer Center of the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, California, found that from August 2012 to January 2014 the e-cigarette market increased by 10.5 brands and an astounding 242 flavours per month.
The rapid growth highlights a problem; the industry is expanding faster than actual research on the effectiveness and health risks associated with the product, and as the industry grows so does the use of the product.
Right now, the need for regulation of e-cigarettes is a moot point in Canada and both sides have presented convincing cases.
On the one hand, the unknown long-term health effects of vaping bring the actual safety of the product into question. Opponents also fear that vaping with “renormalize” smoking and attract ex-smokers or youth.
On the other hand, electronic-cigarettes have been proven to help some people quit smoking, are significantly less harmful than tobacco cigarettes and some argue should be considered a device in managing harm reduction in the battle with an addictive product.
Right now Health Canada is stuck waiting for more studies to come out before drafting regulation.
Federal and provincial governments share jurisdiction over matters of health, but the provinces and municipalities have taken the lead on regulating e-cigarettes.
Even in areas where e-cigarette use is regulated, there is no testing standard in place to verify how the e-cigarette liquid is made and what the contents may be. The problem is that given the uncertainty of health risks associated with the product, regulation is far-reaching, with some provinces having ultimately no rules in place while others have decided to regulate electronic cigarettes as a traditional tobacco cigarette.
Tobacco today
Tobacco use remains the number one cause of preventable deaths in Canada.
The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco products kill up to half of its users; more than 5 million people a year. It also indirectly kills more than 600,000 people annually. Today, there are over a billion smokers worldwide.
Though initial objection to the sale and use of tobacco products was brought up in the early 1960s by then Canadian Health Minister Judy LaMarsh, it was not until the 1980s that Canada sought to decrease the appeal of tobacco products. In 1988, the government passed the Tobacco Products Control Act and followed up with a number of legislative regulations all aimed at stopping the rapid growth of an addictive and hazardous drug.
The 1988 Tobacco Act prohibits the advertising of cigarettes. It has also forced companies to add large warning labels to its packaging. The products are heavily taxed and smokers are typically not allowed to smoke indoors or in heavily populated public places.
The strong pushback by government seems to be working and the results are indisputable. The smoking rate in Canada has been in steady decline particularly amongst youth. According to an analysis of data from Statistics Canada, the smoking rate of youth aged 12 to 19 decreased to 7.7 per cent in 2014 from 11.3 per cent in 2010.
‘I’m not a smoker’
For vapers like Hampartzoumian being classified in the same category as smokers and being restricted to the same degree is offensive.
“It’s like, you try to quit, you’re trying to do something healthier for yourself and they’re just lumping you back into the same group of smokers who don’t really care… yeah, insulting,” he said.
It’s not just vapers; tobacco harm reduction advocates, vape shop owners and doctors say current municipal, provincial and federal policy is out of touch with current empirical evidence. This is because treating electronic cigarettes as the equivalent to tobacco cigarettes communicates a fallacious message—that is that e-cigarettes are as dangerous as cigarettes.
They believe e-cigarettes to be a viable and practical alternative to smoking that should be promoted to smokers looking to distance themselves from traditional tobacco cigarettes.
The issue with the regulation that does exist is two-fold: it’s either not enforced or it is so extreme that it ostracizes and discourages people who are trying to limit their tobacco consumption by using e-cigarettes .
This MRP will highlight the Canadian research done to date and juxtapose it with the considerable regulation of electronic cigarettes in Canada all done under the auspices of public health, leisure, and marketing.