Vaping, e-cigs a safer alternative to tobacco
After reading and then re-reading your article: Newest vape shop in Peterborough opens, August 14. I was left to wonder what was exactly the point? To congratulate and celebrate another Vape Shop opening its door to help people search for an alternative to smoking or to perpetuate fear and shaming of smokers and keep them smoking?
One can only hope that Peterborough public health nurse Mary Pat Cannon was misquoted when she says “there’s that perception that e-cigarettes are a safer form of tobacco” and repeats the fear-mongering claims of those who protect the cigarette trade.
First, vaping products are not a ‘form of tobacco,’ but something that replaces the toxic brew of burnt tobacco leaves that smokers are currently repeatedly inhaling into their lungs.
Secondly, it is not just that there is some ‘perception’ of reduced risk or, as she also says, that vaping is ‘likely’ less harmful for smokers than smoking. The science has been well established for decades that while people smoke for the nicotine, it is the inhalation of smoke to get that nicotine that is causing the horrendous toll of death and disease. No less an authority than the Royal College of Physicians in the UK, arguably the most prestigious medical body in the world, has concluded that vaping is likely to be ‘at least 95 per cent less hazardous than smoking ’.
Peterborough Public Health should be doing more to empower smokers to take charge of their own health. They should give accurate information and promote strategies that reduce risk. They should be facilitating rather than discouraging smokers who wish to reduce their risks.
Indeed, they should be listening to global experts such as Professor David Sweanor of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa (who was quoted in the article but without mention of his credentials) rather than pushing a strategy that is at odds with the risk reduction measures public health advocates promote on so many other issues.
Maria Duic,
Vapor Advocates of Ontario
Owner, The Ecig Flavourium