Canada should ban all advertising, marketing, promotion and sponsorship involving e-cigarette companies to avoid attracting a new generation of smokers
Tobacco is Canada's forgotten pandemic. While much of the attention has been focused on the opioid overdose crisis, COVID-19, alcohol use and other common issues, tobacco use continues to grow to this day, according to a July 2023 Health Canada report. It is said to be the “leading cause of preventable premature death in Canada.”
Health Canada reports that tobacco killed approximately 46,000 Canadians in 2020.
Decades of efforts for tobacco control, and efforts by the tobacco industry to stop, slow, and undermine it, have led to a gradual decline in deaths, but this is still the highest total death toll. 1 in 7 people.
In fact, Health Canada reports that since 2000, “tobacco has caused more than one million deaths in Canada.”
For comparison, in the first six months of 2023, there were about 4,000 deaths from opioid addiction (or about 8,000 per year), and in 2021, there were about 4,000 deaths from alcohol use.
In fact, the tobacco industry killed more people in one year than drug dealers in the seven-and-a-half years from January 2016 to June 2023. This is a truly shocking fact and deserves more attention.
Another useful comparison is that while COVID-19 has killed about 57,000 Canadians since January 2020, tobacco has killed about 200,000 Canadians over the same four-year period.
According to the Canadian Center on Drug Use and Addiction's 2023 report, it cost Canada an estimated $11.2 billion in 2020, with direct medical costs totaling $5.4 billion.
So you might think we would do everything we can to eradicate this deadly industry. In fact, the Government of Canada's Tobacco Strategy, which is “designed to help achieve the goal of reducing tobacco use to less than 5 per cent by 2035” and is euphemistically known as “No Smoking”, is the latest data suggests we may be heading in that direction.
Statistics Canada reports that in 2022, only 9.3 per cent of Canadians aged 24 and older (8.3 per cent women and 10.3 per cent men) reported daily smoking.
The proportion is much lower among young people: 2.6 percent for 20-24 year olds and just 1 percent for 15-19 year olds. This suggests that the government's goals may be achievable.
However, the strategy lacks any mention of creating a tobacco-free generation through legislation banning the sale and supply of tobacco to individuals born after a certain year, which the UK government will implement. Intend.
Meanwhile, the tobacco industry promotes e-cigarettes as a “safer” alternative and as an aid to smoking cessation.
Troublingly, the same 2022 Statistics Canada survey found that 6.5 per cent of 15- to 19-year-olds and 10.1 per cent of 20- to 24-year-olds reported using e-cigarettes daily. , and only 2% of 25-year-olds. And he's older.
Clearly, the tobacco industry has been successful in creating new markets by targeting young people.
However, the WHO reported in December 2023 that “e-cigarettes as a consumer product have not been shown to be effective in reducing smoking cessation at a population level.” On the contrary, alarming evidence has emerged about the negative effects on the public's health,” adding, “Children are being recruited and locked up from an early age to use e-cigarettes, and are at risk of becoming addicted to nicotine.” There is.”
The WHO added: “Research consistently shows that young people who use e-cigarettes are almost three times more likely to use cigarettes later in life.”
The UK Government has been clear about this. “It is unacceptable for adults to encourage children to use products designed to help them quit smoking, and then lead them to become addicted to it,” the government notes in its 2023 Stop the Start policy document.
It's time for Canada to apply the same rules to e-cigarettes as it does to cigarettes, banning all advertising, marketing, promotion and sponsorship.
The tobacco industry manufactures and sells products that, when used as intended, are addictive and kill at least half and perhaps two-thirds of users, something the UK government says does not happen with other consumer products. points out.
This is a classic example of a trend seen in too many companies. Corporations only care about the health of their profits and have no regard for the health of the public.
The leaders of this industry are not people who should be accepted by society, but rather people who should be excluded and ostracized for their bad deeds.
suncock@uvic.ca
Dr Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior academic in the School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria.
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