“It is like everyone has forgotten about smoking, which will kill over 100 Canadians today,” he said.
David Sweanor, Professor in the Center for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa said bans and restrictions on vaping could drive more people to smoke. This could undo years of work the public health has been doing to reduce cigarette smoking in Canada.
In Canada, approximately 17% of deaths are due to smoking; 20% in males, and in 12% in females. This is OVERALL DEATHS IN CANADA. This equates to nearly 4,000 Canadians each year that die due to smoking cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Secondhand smoke accounts for 831 deaths in 2002, and almost 100 infant deaths were a result of smoking. It is estimated that the average life expectancy in a smoking male goes from 78 years to 71 years, and from 83 years to 73 years in females (Source).
Sweanor states (correctly) that the majority of the cases being investigated by the CDC in the US are NOT CONNECTED with nicotine-based vaping products, but rather connected to THC . It is his recommendation to warn the population against THC-infused oils and not issue a blanket warning against all vaping.
“This is hugely counterproductive,” Sweanor states regarding the panic around vaping. Public Health Officials see the value of vaping nicotine as a harm reduction for adult smokers. “We have the potential to get rid of the leading cause of preventable death. What is killing people is the smoke, not the nicotine,” Sweanor continues.
Sweanor goes on to say, “Just Say No Campaigns around vaping will have the unintended consequences of pushing people towards cigarettes”. There are many cases in recent weeks seeing vapers moving back to smoking due to this ill-advised blanket warning from both Health Canada and The Center for Diseases Control. “Just Say No Campaigns do not meet those criteria, particularly so when dealing with addictions, and dramatically so when the foreseeable consequences is the resumption of a massively more hazardous behavior like cigarette smoking.”
Speaking on behalf of Canada Vapes, there is a great deal of fear within our customer base, with racy headlines about ‘vaping related deaths’, and friends and families switching from being proud of them for quitting smoking to suggesting they are killing themselves and to go back to smoking! Outrageous! Preposterous! …but sadly true.
Howie from Canada Vapes states : “We have been selling Vape products since 2010, and the vaping industry has been around for over 15 years. In our history, there have been zero episodes of significant harmful reactions from any of our over 100,000 Canadian customers. Clearly there is a new and unsafe product in the market that needs to be called out by name. Fortunately places like the Rolling Stone Magazine, Leafy.com, and The New York Times are starting to get the truth into the market. Hopefully its not too late. Hopefully ex-smokers will not return to the terrible cigarettes. Hopefully soon our own government health regulators will start to reveal the truth to their citizens.”
Parts of original article from The Ottawa Citizen. Read full article here.
