Russell Daikens is not alone. He wants Health Canada to end it’s ban on electronic cigarettes that contain nicotine. He smoked for 50 years at two packs per day. Quick math tells us he smoked about 730,000 tobacco cigarettes over this period….and that is at 20 cigarettes per pack, while many come in 25. But in January he found the e-cig and never turned back. The story appear in this news article on metronews.ca.
Although these electronic smoking products may be marketed as a safer alternative to conventional tobacco products and, in some cases, as an aid to quitting smoking, electronic smoking products may pose risks such as nicotine poisoning and addiction,” Health Canada said, in a statement.
Funny that Health Canada is worried about nicotine addiction when they authorize the sale of tobacco cigarettes, which have nicotine. They also approved many other products with nicotine in them such as nicotine gum and patches. And the concern over nicotine poisoning is unlikely. In fact it has never happened. E-Cigarettes have been used in North America for over 5 years without one case of nicotine poisoning. This is not to say it is a none issue. If a user where to drink a bottle of e-liquid with nicotine, it would be very, very dangerous. But banning (rather than regulating) e-cigarettes because of potential consumer misuse is analogous to banning mouthwash because of the off chance someone would drink it in quantities that would harm them. Reasonable regulation and labeling would seem to be a more logical course of action.
So will Health Canada re-consider it’s ban on electronic cigarettes with nicotine? It seems unlikely until someone ponies up the money to make it a pharmaceutical product. And even then, sales would likely be limited to pharmacies. For Russell’s sake, and for the sake of every other smoker in Canada, we hope Health Canada looks at the e-cigarette as a blessing, not a danger.
Is Health Canada Contradicting Itself?
Since 2009 Health Canada has placed a ban on marketing or selling e-cigarettes with nicotine. Their stance is they need market authorization in the same way a nicotine patch or gum needs authorization within Canada. As we mentioned in the past, non-nicotine electronic cigarettes are fine, since they do not contain any substances that warrant involvement with Health Canada.
From this, let’s make a leap: Health Canada would recommend, if you were intent on smoking marijuana, that you vaporize it because it is better for you. However, they would NOT recommend, if you were intent on smoking cigarettes, that you use an e-cigarette.
Yes, there are other nicotine replacement “therapies” such as the patch or gum, but these are to quit smoking. What if a smoker wanted to keep smoking and getting nicotine, but wanted a safer method? Is Health Canada going against it’s stated mission of “helping Canadians maintain and improve their health, while respecting individual choices and circumstance”. If they know vaporization is safer than combustion and they want to respect individual choices, they why would they deny Canadians the option of an electronic cigarette?
We encourage you to write Health Canada and your Member of Parliament and ask them.
Are Canadian Pharmaceutical Companies Involved?
In the United States the pharmaceutical companies are closely tied to public health organizations. In fact a lot of the funding for many public health organizations comes from big pharma. Not to mention that the FDA gets a lot of it’s funding from licensing, fees, and fines from the major players in the legal drug trade. In the US these public health groups have been strictly against the electronic cigarette. Consider this: in the last year and a half Pfizer alone gave groups such as the American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Legacy Foundation, and the Action on Smoking and Health (among others) a collective 2.8 million dollars. So it is not hard to see why these groups would be against the e-cigarette, which is in direct competition with many of the nicotine based products pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer sell. But that doesn’t mean it is in the best interest of public health.
In September 2006, CPHA’s Board of Directors approved a “Corporate Relations / Corporate Sponsorship Policy” to guide CPHA’s collaboration with the private sector.
The companies with **** are pharmaceuticals.
So smokeless tobacco is 5% as dangerous as tobacco cigarettes, but they are still against them. And what CPHA doesn’t tell you is that there are risks with using pharmaceutical nicotine products. Drilling down to the heart of this: Is it bias to recommend one group of products (nicotine gum, patches, sprays, and whatever else big pharma brings out) and not another such e-cigarettes? Wouldn’t it be in the best interest of health to recommend a product that is 95% more healthy than tobacco cigarettes? Nothing is 100% safe so why is the CPHA against reduced harm tobacco products? And if your argument is that they still cause cancer (albeit at a rate 95% lower than cigarettes) then why are they against e-cigarettes which have never been shown to cause cancer? I’ll let you be the judge.
In a comment article printed in the National Post at the end of last year, Jesse Kline makes the argument for ending the ban in Canada on electronic cigarettes that contain nicotine. While I fully agree the ban is not in the best interest of the health of Canadians, there are a few issues with some of the facts and speculation made in the article. I thought it important to set the record straight.
First, some praise. It was good to see that people are realizing the ban on e-cigarettes in Canada is only for those products that contain nicotine. For some time many thought it was a general ban, but without nicotine or health claims Health Canada has little say over a product made up of electronics and containing no drugs. Jesse did fail to mention that health claims such as “quit smoking” or “healthy alternative” do bring Health Canada into the picture, but all-in-all he had it right.
Where he failed to do some research was the sentence: “The devices contain a heating element that turns a liquid made of propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine (two common food additives) and nicotine into a water vapour,” In truth, the liquid or e-liquid as it is often called, is made up of propylene glycol, glycerin, water, flavorings, and potentially nicotine. But the big issue I have is “water vapour”. This is a common misconception. The vapour from an e-cigarette has been shown to contain the same ingredients as the liquid, although not in the exact same percentages, since the vaporization process does not effect each substance in the same way. This can be shown with some testing of e-liquid.
Jesse also claims there are no carcinogens in e-cigarette vapor. This is only partially true. Without nicotine, yes, there are no carcinogens. However with nicotine there are trace amounts. This is not a big deal when you consider BBQ’d meat has trace amounts of carcinogens, but none-the-less it was not completely accurate.
A number of studies have shown that the illusion of smoking created by the device helps to satisfy cravings, but without nicotine, it cannot help smokers get over the physiological dependence that is created by the drug.
True, studies have shown e-cigarettes help smokers, but I have always found it curious that experts and users alike believe that it is important to keep using nicotine to get over the addiction to nicotine. Although in rare cases such as heroin addiction, other drugs are used to ween the addicted off the drug, it seems counter intuitive to keep using nicotine to get over an addiction to nicotine. What I would recommend to people is to quit smoking cold turkey and if they like, use and e-cigarette with no nicotine to get the action of smoking, if they still want it.
Overall we applaud Jesse Kline for speaking his mind and bringing more light to the issue of electronic cigarettes in Canada.