Time to revisit city’s misguided curbs on vaping
Between agonizing over the tough choices looming in the next budget (while somehow also finding money to splurge on the Olympics) and implementing a restrictive new cannabis bylaw, Calgary’s city council has been rather preoccupied these days.
However, that shouldn’t distract from other matters or even preclude council from revisiting past decisions. Granted, it usually takes a change in government to get the perspective and political will necessary for realizing that a wrong decision had previously been made. And, of course, Calgary’s political status quo is locked in until 2021.
In Ontario, where the Liberals have been swept from office after 15 years in power, the new PC government is wasting little time in dismantling various elements of the Liberal legacy. In one decision, in particular, Calgary ought to follow their lead.
Last week, the new Ontario government announced that it was putting the province’s new vaping rules on hold. Those rules would have placed severe restrictions on e-cigarettes, essentially treating them exactly the same as combustible tobacco cigarettes.
In 2015, Calgary introduced similar restrictions, and a report the following year declared the bylaw to be a success. That conclusion was based largely on survey results indicating awareness of and compliance with the bylaw. On an issue like this, however, we need to set the bar much higher for “success.”
Ontario’s new approach is rather prudent and has the added advantage of aligning with current evidence. A spokesman for Ontario’s premier said last week that they intend to “work with the public, experts, and businesses to re-examine the evidence related to vaping as a smoking-cessation tool.”
Treating vaping like smoking is not only illogical but counterproductive. If the evidence is telling us that e-cigarettes are significantly safer than tobacco cigarettes and effective in reducing usage rates of the latter, then any regulatory approach that fails to take that into account is not worth the paper it’s printed on.
A lot has happened since Calgary’s bylaw was implemented, yet beyond the self-congratulatory report the following year there’s been a real lack of curiosity as to whether the restrictions are actually accomplishing anything — or worse, proving to be counterproductive.
For one thing, federal legislation took effect earlier this year that mandates a minimum age for purchasing vaping products and placing restrictions around flavouring and marketing — the sorts of regulations that for the most part make sense, and are outside the jurisdiction of municipalities. More importantly, though, we had a major new report this year from the prestigious National Academy of Sciences on the comparative safety of e-cigarettes and their potential as a smoking-cessation tool. That report, which analyzed some 800 peerreviewed studies, concludes e-cigarettes are indeed safer than cigarettes, that second-hand vapour from e-cigarettes is safer than secondhand smoke, and that “more frequent use of e-cigarettes is associated with increased likelihood of cessation.”
The U.K. College of Physicians concluded much the same the previous year when it urged the British government to “promote the use of e-cigarettes … and other non-tobacco nicotine products as widely as possible as a substitute for smoking.”
The college concluded that the risk from long-term e-cigarette use “is unlikely to exceed five per cent of the harm from smoking tobacco,” a number which could be lowered even further through “technological developments and improved production standards.”
So not only is the Ontario government having a rethink, so too is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Last year, the FDA delayed new regulations that would have severely limited the number of e-cigarettes on the market, and instead opened the door to the potential harm-reduction benefits of vaping.
Calgary’s bylaw already looked like a bureaucratic overreach three years ago, and time has only further confirmed that suspicion. Hopefully, councillors can find it within themselves to swallow their pride, admit they got it wrong, and take a cue from the jurisdictions willing to have a more open mind on this issue.