Clearing the smoke in B.C.
Health experts praise effort, but ‘cool’ factor looms as a challenge
Tough new regulations take aim at curbing youth vaping,
On social media, post after post shows cloudfilled photos and arty shots of couples. The hashtag #vape has more than 28 million posts on Instagram, where accounts like “Celebrities who Juul” thrive.
This culture of cool is what B.C.’s government is up against as it gets set to introduce Canada’s toughest regulations on the vape industry in an effort to curb youth vaping.
Experts say the new rules are a start.
“It’s not just advertising, it's the fact that kids think it’s cool,” said David Hammond, chair of the University of Waterloo’s applied public health program.
“You have a new techy, modern sleek gadget, you have a highly addictive drug, you have wonderful tasty flavours, and you have it in every corner store,” said Hammond.
But he said the province’s new regulations “cut to the heart of the product” by addressing most of the elements that contribute to vaping’s sheen: with restrictions on product appearance, nicotine content, price point and product availability. The B.C. government announced the new regulations Thursday, which will come into effect in January. The new rules include reducing the nicotine content in vapour pods, a tax hike on vaping products, and funding to support youth-led anti-vaping campaigns.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the aim was to target the product’s rise in popularity among youth, where vaping rates are increasing and creating risk of serious illness.
“In a short number of years, vaping has shifted from being a smoking cessation tool for adults to an addictions trap for our youth,” he said at a news conference Thursday.
Dix cited data from a British Medical Journal report that youth vaping rates have increased 74 per cent between 2017 and 2018, and noted that cases of illness associated with vaping have been reported across Canada, with three suspected cases in B.C.
Two B.C. teens are now at the centre of a class-action lawsuit where they claim to have suffered “adverse health conditions” after using the company’s e-cigarettes in 2018.
Dix said the government will introduce new regulations that restrict the amount of nicotine in vapour pods, require health warnings on vapour products and prevent advertising of vapour products in areas where youth spend time, including bus shelters and community parks. Additionally, only agerestricted shops will be able to sell flavoured vapes. Finance Minister Carole James said the government will introduce legislation that boosts the provincial sales tax on vaping products from seven per cent to 20 per cent.
“Yes, it is a big tax jump and one that really signifies the urgency of this problem. We all know that youth are particularly price sensitive, and so when you make a product more expensive and harder to access, youth will decline,” James said.
The plan also includes youthled campaigns to steer young people away from vaping.
Health Canada has issued a warning to people who vape, asking them to monitor themselves for symptoms of vapingrelated pulmonary illness following hundreds of such cases in the U.S. and a few in Canada.
Elizabeth Saewyc, a professor in the School of Nursing at UBC, said she was “quite impressed” that the regulations target vaping in a number of different ways and are “taking a page form the playbook of tobacco prevention.”
According to the province, the new regulations do not speak to the online advertising of vaping products, which falls under federal jurisdiction. The province is calling on the federal government to address online retail sales, and media, and to take further action in regulating nicotine content in products.
Experts say social media is the primary force behind marketing vaping to teens. According to Steve Kates, marketing professor at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, much of it goes beyond traditional advertising,
“Social media influencers are not the actual company advertising. These are people supposedly just like the teens. The same age. The same interests,” he explained. “It’s not a company. It’s not a celebrity. And it looks authentic.”
Why do people perceive vaping to be cool? According to Yann Cornil, marketing and behavioural science professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, there are two reasons.
First, the product has to be perceived as breaking a norm or rule, said Cornil. Along with being perceived as rebellious, the “rule-breaking” has to be seen as relatively harmless.
“That means the norm is not understood and is perceived as repressive. Teenagers might think, ‘The government is trying to crack down on vaping, but I don’t really understand why. There’s not enough scientific evidence that suggests it’s harmful,’ ” Cornil explained.