Understanding how and where youth get their products is key to addressing the issue of youth vaping

Imperial Tobacco Canada supports restricting vaping among teens, noting there should also be appropriate measures to ensure that youth cannot access nicotine products.

“Our position is very simple: just as we believe that youth should not smoke, we agree that youth should not vape,” Eric Gagnon, head of corporate affairs for Imperial Tobacco Canada, notes in a company statement. “We support measures that prevent under-age access to vapour products,” Gagnon says.

“We fully support laws and regulations that prohibit the sale of vaping products to anyone under the legal minimum age and we also believe that enforcement and penalties for breaking such laws must be tough enough to discourage anybody from selling to people who are underage,” he says, adding the company did not begin selling vapour products until federal legislation was passed legalizing their sale.

Understanding how and where youth get their products is key to addressing teen vaping, Imperial Tobacco reports. “The counter-productive approach would be to take a blanket prohibitive approach to communications, promotion and sale,” the company argues, suggesting that a better tack is to “allow adult smokers to receive the information required to switch to a potentially reduced risk product.”

“Adult smokers looking for an alternative to traditional cigarettes should be able to get the information they need and have access to their vapour product of choice, while maintaining strict measures to prevent youth access,” Gagnon contends.

“We don’t have all the answers, but it’s not every day that the tobacco industry, teachers, parents and health professionals are on the same page,” he points out. “Be it tobacco, nicotine, alcohol or cannabis, we can all agree that these products should not end up in the hands of youth,” he adds.

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