Regulation on the promotion of vaping products: the Coalition disappointed

The Vaping Products Promotion Regulations, recently published in Part II of the Canada Gazette, have strongly appealed to the Coalition, which has urged the opposition parties to introduce a private member's bill. The goal: better protection for young people.

Vaping among young people in Canada

Statistics Canada data shows that the vast majority of vaping consumers are youth (who have never smoked) or smokers who vape and continue to smoke. According to the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey[1], the proportion of young people who vaped in the last 30 days more than doubled between 2016/17 and 2018/19 (from 10 to 20 %), most of them having hardly ever smoked before.

New measures

Under the regulations, vaping product advertising that can be seen by young people in public places will be banned starting August 7, and starting September 6 in points of sale that are accessible to them. However, promotional videos will still be allowed in bars, as well as on websites and social networks restricted to adults. Unfortunately, this content is easily accessible to teenagers, and often associates vaping with “hipness.” The Coalition and other health groups had already flagged this issue to Minister Patty Hadju and Health Canada in January.

Insufficient regulation and corrections

According to Flory Doucas, spokesperson and co-director of the Coalition, “This regulation reflects the federal government’s usual laissez-faire attitude toward the issue of vaping among youth and non-smokers in general. The 2018 law legalizing vaping products was too weak, and today’s regulatory fixes are too weak, in addition to arriving 18 months late. The government should have acted urgently in 2019 when it was clear that the industry was deploying aggressive and abusive promotional strategies and that nicotine vaping was skyrocketing among youth. In fact, the new measures have essentially already existed in Quebec since 2016, but have not been enough to reverse the upward trend in vaping among youth.”

Filling regulatory gaps

For Flory Doucas, it is urgent to make vaping products:

- less attractive, by prohibiting the addition of flavors,

- less addictive, by limiting their nicotine level.

She adds that "the federal government continues to allow the flavoring of vaping liquids that appeal to youth, such as fruit flavors. Federal inspectors seize countless non-compliant products - such as candy flavors - but never issue fines. The federal government also continues to allow nicotine levels three times higher (66 mg/ml) than those allowed by the European Union (20 mg/ml)."

  ©Generation Without Tobacco

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[1] Summary of results from the 2018-2019 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, Health Canada (accessed July 16, 2020). [2] Promotion of vaping products: Desperate over the shortcomings of the new federal regulations, the Coalition calls on the opposition parties to introduce a private bill to better protect young people, www.lelezard.com (Montreal: July 8, 2020 - consulted on July 16, 2020). These articles may also interest you: Canada: Young vapers have more than doubled in two years, Tobacco-Free Generation (May 5, 2020 - accessed July 16, 2020). CNCT, Towards a tightening of legislation on vaping in Canada, Tobacco-Free Generation (April 24, 2020 - accessed July 16, 2020). DNF - For a Zero Tobacco World | CF