Province strikes a good balance with vaping rules

Reasonable people can disagree on the merits of a particular piece of government legislation. However, in the case of Alberta’s proposed new vaping regulations, the idea that this sensible balance should be portrayed as some sort of massive failure deserves some pushback.

Bill 19 aims to amend the Tobacco and Smoking Reduction Act to include new restrictions and regulations for vaping products, specifically around where and how they can be sold and used.

For example, it reinforces a minimum age of 18 for purchasing and possessing vaping products and includes stiff penalties for those who sell to minors. Vaping displays and advertisements will no longer be allowed in gas stations and convenience stores and the rules around where vaping products can be sold and used will now align with the rules for tobacco products. All of this comes on the heels of the province imposing a new tax on vaping products earlier this year.

The province says the objective of this bill is to keep these products out of the hands of Alberta youth, but to also not dissuade smokers from switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes. Striking that balance is tricky, but it’s certainly a laudable goal.

Understandably, then, some will feel this bill goes too far in lumping vaping in with smoking, while others will feel it doesn’t go far enough in regulating and restricting vaping products.

With regard to the latter, the absence of a ban on flavoured vaping products is seen as a glaring oversight at best and a fatal flaw at worst. The bill gives the province the authority to consider such restrictions in the future, but holds off doing so for now.

In the context of the two main objectives

Fewer than five per cent of respondents cited flavoured products as a factor.

of this bill, though, it’s worth examining how meaningful a ban on flavoured vaping products would be and whether the lack of such a ban undermines these objectives.

On the surface, it’s easy to see how candy or fruit-flavoured vaping products could appeal to young people. But the real question here is to what extent flavoured products are motivating youth vaping habits.

The experience with vaping giant Juul is telling. In 2018, the company voluntarily banned all candy and fruit-flavoured products, but a recent study by the American Cancer Society shows that the ban had no effect on Juul’s overall sales.

Clearly, then, other factors are driving consumption habits and patterns.

A study published last month in JAMA Pediatrics shed some further light on this question. The findings stem from a survey of young people aged 14-24 and found that social aspects around vaping and the so-called “cool” factor were the main drivers of use. Fewer than five per cent of respondents cited flavoured products as a factor.

Similar results were found in a 2017 study commissioned by Health Canada, which found that social triggers and peer pressure were the biggest drivers in young people trying vaping products for the first time.

Even if flavoured products are a small piece of the puzzle, one might argue that there’s still little downside in banning them. But that would be misguided.

Again, the province’s approach is about not just youth usage, but also harm reduction for adult smokers. The debate around flavoured products seems to focus almost entirely on the former while ignoring the latter.

A study published earlier this month by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health found that smokers who switched to flavoured vaping products were more than twice as likely to quit cigarettes compared to those who used tobacco-flavoured vaping products.

In other words, the lack of a ban on flavoured vaping products does not render Bill 19 a failure or useless. It’s actually quite in keeping with the intent of striking a reasonable balance.