Shephard has just tabled a legislation that would create a registry of businesses selling vaping products, as part of the effort to prevent teen vaping. The opposition said the bill will not actually address the problem, but Shephard replied that more restrictions are on the way.
“This is only the first bill that’s being brought forward and this is about regulation and licensing, so there is more to come,” she said.
In November, local health critic Jean-Claude D’Amours introduced a legislation that would ban flavoured e-liquids, yet the bill has remain untouched. He said that he wants to see the flavours issue addressed by the local government. “If you look at many organizations, what they are looking for is really to eliminate the flavours,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey has recently revealed that between 2019 and 2020, there was a 40% drop in smoking rates in this specific age group, from 13.3% to 8%. This figure is encouraging for Health Canada’s smoking prevalence target of 5% for 2035. Moreover the target has already been achieved among those aged 15-19, as the smoking rate is currently no more than 5%.
The media is selective in what it reports
In a letter addressed to Health Minister Patty Hajdu, professor of Economics at Concordia University, and a research fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, Ian Irvine, said that it is a shame that the media is selective in what it reports. “It is unfortunate that these achievements have been largely ignored by a media that has been, for the most part, fixated on the concept of a vaping epidemic among these age groups.”
Irvine highlighted that while smoking rates had been declining due to Government policy towards tobacco, the real change happened when vaping products arrived on the scene. “By 2013 smoking had declined to 11 percent for those aged 15-19, 18 percent for 20-24 year olds, and about 16 percent for those aged 25 and above…Then a disruptive technology intruded on the scene –vaping.”
Read Further: Global News
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