In other articles in our recent series on vaping we have explored how convenience stores and vape shops view the need for regulation and enforcement. Today, we explore how two policymakers in our province are tackling the issue in very different ways.

France Gelinas, the health critic for the NDP, is in support of further regulatory action being taken on vaping. Prior to the Ford administration taking office in Ontario, Gelinas had worked on the Smoke-Free Ontario Act which would have treated vapes in a similar way to traditional cigarettes.

Some of the effects of these regulations would have included a ban on advertisements as well as a flavour ban. When this act was originally voted upon, it passed with only one detractor vote from PC MPP Randy Hillier.

Shortly after the PCs came to power in 2018, the sections of the act relating to vaping products were removed. It was not long after this that some argue youth vaping began to become an issue. France Gelinas is one of these people.

“It is the direct cause. First of all most of the vaping is owned by the tobacco industry now. So the tobacco industry is really really good at targeted advertising. They are really good at getting to kids, whether it be on their homes, through social media, around their schools.”

While the majority of vaping products are not owned by tobacco companies, several of the most well-known brands have the backing of big tobacco.

Altria, the company behind Phillip Morris cigarettes, holds a 35% stake in Juul. Vuse is owned by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company, a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc. Both of these organizations were acquired by British American Tobacco in 2017.

Gelinas expanded on why she views this as a problem.

“They are just really good at getting to kids and they sell products that are addictive. Once the kids start they get addicted to nicotine and then you don’t have to work anymore. Their addiction will grow in the back.”

Gelinas went on to say that she does not believe that vaping products were ever intended to be used as smoking cessation devices.

“They wanted us to believe that vaping was introduced as a less harmful and help quit [method]. But there is no body of scientific evidence that supports this. You can repeat this a hundred times but it does not make it true.”

This stance is contrary to the peer-reviewed study conducted by Public Health England (PHE) and the Royal College of Physicians that found e-cigarettes to be “at least 95%” less harmful than smoking cigarettes. PHE says it has seen a 65-68% success rate in helping smokers quit via the use of e-cigarettes.

This was something MPP Randy Hillier says was brought up during one of the hearings regarding the Smoke-Free Ontario Act

“The vast majority [found] vaping was an activity that smokers who wanted to quit smoking turned to. There was no evidence of people taking up vaping who weren’t already smokers.”

Gelinas believes that another core issue surrounding people turning to vaping has been the government’s role in educating the public. She says that it has never been easy to find the information and resources available through government sites and thus people have found this information from less reputable sources.

“It’s pretty irresponsible of the government to let an industry dominate. People got their educations from the ads on Facebook and from the ads on television and everything else. I mean so this is how people got educated they got this really one-sided view of vaping and the government stayed silent through the whole thing. They are still silent as we speak.”

Hillier also believes that there needs to be more education towards vaping.

“You’re seeing vaping in very different lights. What is the right way to see it? In Ontario and Canada, I think should be more in line with the U.K. model that it’s effective smoking cessation. There should be greater education about those benefits for it. That’s really where the value of vapes are in my view.”

In a recent interview with XFM News, Dr. Chris Mackie of the Middlesex-London Health Unit said that while vaping is safer than cigarettes, he finds that to be a very low bar to set. Hillier thinks that this type of response is disingenuous.

“That’s craziness, that’s craziness. You know that’s an order of magnitude, exponential improvement in safety and with no other negatives attached to it. It would be like saying you know there is no difference between skydiving with or without a parachute.”

Hillier went on to say he is not surprised that public health units would be taking this stance.

“Most of the public health units that I’ve dealt with, even the ones in my riding, have just sent off some very scathing letters about vaping. They’re looking at vaping in a very distorted fashion. So how they can take this alarmist position and reject evidence and call themselves medical practitioners is beyond me.”

Hillier believes that a better lens to view vaping from is one of harm reduction.

“We do this with methadone clinics. Methadone is still harmful and still addictive it still has substantial negative properties, but it has much fewer than if you’re taking heroin.”

In the end, both sides agreed that in order to curb any trends that are leading teens towards vaping, regulations would need to be more strictly enforced at the point of sale. What that looks like will come down to policymakers reaching a consensus on how to view vaping.