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What you may not realize is that restrictive regulation of e-cigarettes could be not only a poor policy choice, but also a violation of Canadians’ Charter-protected right to make decisions about their own bodies that will benefit their own health, as Courts have ruled is guaranteed by the Charter’s Section 7. One of the CCF’s points is that the Supreme Court of Canada has already shown itself willing to back the idea that an individual’s right to “life, liberty and security of the person” includes harm reduction. Back in 2011, in a case called Canada vs. PHS Community Services Society, the high court ordered that the government couldn’t close down supervised drug-injection sites (which offered illicit drug users clean needles, clean facilities, and supervising health-care workers) for this very reason. Believe what you will about whether the court overreached in Canada vs. PHS, but the CCF and its report authors are not wrong in pointing to the case as a clear and relevant precedent that could render strict vaping laws ripe for constitutional challenge on the grounds that they block access to a proven harm reduction choice.

What you may not realize is that restrictive regulation of e-cigarettes could be not only a poor policy choice, but also a violation of Canadians’ Charter-protected right to make decisions about their own bodies that will benefit their own health

Here’s a brief summary of what the report found about current vaping laws in Canadian jurisdictions at various levels of government:

British Columbia’s e-cigarette regulation, while far from a rights- and evidenced-based ideal, is the least problematic in the country since it at least allows flavoured e-juices (key to e-cigarettes’ palatability and therefore viability as products), and Health Link B.C. acknowledges vaping as a potentially useful method for quitting smoking. The federal government’s proposed vaping legislation (Government Bill S-5) is the worst. If passed, it would put a blanket ban on communications and ads that claim that vaping is less harmful than smoking combustible cigarettes, or that vaping is a viable harm reduction alternative.

In a perfect world, there might no smoking or vaping at all, but we all know this is far from a perfect world; so why not make it the best one we can by offering smokers a chance to save their own lives with a better — if not flawless — alternative?

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