Liberal Leader Mark Carney is out to prove he’s a centrist. By ending unpopular Trudeau-era policies like the capital gains tax hike and the consumer carbon tax, Carney is clearly making a play for the political middle. 

If Carney really wants Canadian consumers to believe he’s moved to the middle, it’s time for the Liberals to embrace evidenced-based policies. That includes pivoting away from the last government’s approach to nicotine pouches. 

Former health minister Mark Holland banned certain flavours of nicotine pouches and restricted the sale of pouches that are still allowed to be sold to being behind pharmacy counters. 

From a harm-reduction standpoint, these moves make zero sense. 

First, policy makers should want smokers to make the shift from smoking cigarettes to cessation products like nicotine pouches. If including more flavours encourages that transition, it simply doesn’t make sense to block it. 

Plus, Nicorette, which is yet another smoking cessation product,comes in gums, lozenges and sprays and offers a variety of flavours, including mint, fresh fruit, cool berry and mild spearmint.

Why allow Nicorette to come in all kinds of flavours but ban most of those flavours for pouches? The U.S. Federal Drug Administration sensibly took the opposite approach and approved 20 flavours of nicotine pouches.  

Second, under present rules, folks can still buy cigarettes at virtually every corner store and gas station, but they’ve got to go to a pharmacy to buy a product that actually helps smokers quit and significantly reduces harm for users. 

Why allow cigarettes to be sold at gas stations and corner stores but not nicotine pouches? 

It’s important to remember that it’s combusting tobacco, not nicotine, that is having such a damaging impact on Canadians’ health. If Canadian consumers want to be able to purchase products with nicotine instead of buying cigarettes, it simply doesn’t make sense to make it easier for consumers to access more harmful products than smoking cessation tools. 

Critics of nicotine pouches argue that pouches are a gateway to smoking. However, the evidence simply doesn’t bear that out. 

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment found that pouches have very limited appeal (11-12%) to people who have never consumed tobacco products before, including minors. 

Among smokers, by contrast, or those who chew tobacco, interest in nicotine pouches  increases to 75%. 

This shouldn’t be a shocking statistic: most smokers spend decades trying to quit. Given that pouches offer a possible off-ramp that is far less risky for one’s health than smoking, it makes perfect sense that smokers would be highly interested in nicotine pouches. 

At the same time, the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment also found that nicotine pouches carry little risk and are just as risky as other forms of cessation tools, including nicotine patches, gums and sprays. According to that assessment, nicotine pouches are 99% less harmful than cigarettes.  

Pouches are less risky than smoking and the vast majority of those interested in nicotine pouches are those who presently smoke. These products should be made easier for folks to access, not harder. And yet that’s exactly the approach that the Trudeau government took under Holland as health minister. 

Then there’s the risk of the black market: If consumers are determined to access nicotine pouches to help them quit smoking, there’s every risk that scores of Canadians will turn to the black market. Contraband tobacco is a huge issue in Canada. Why encourage consumers to seek out the black market for smoking cessation products? The black market allows for zero government regulation, whereas the government could enact sensible regulations regarding nicotine pouches by treating them as smoking cessation tools. 

Carney wants Canadians to believe he’s a middle-ground, evidence-based politician bringing the Liberals back to the middle of the political spectrum. If that’s true, Carney should take a hard look at the previous Liberal government’s approach to nicotine pouches and prioritize smoking cessation by making these products easier — not harder — to access. 

Originally published here

The hearing took just over an hour. Today, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments, LLC, a pivotal case concerning the Food and Drug Administration’s rejection of applications to market flavored nicotine vaping devices.

The case is about much more than saving the vaping industry; it is also a landmark case for regulatory accountability related to public health and consumer choice. A decision is expected by the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June.

At issue is whether the FDA acted arbitrarily and capriciously when denying numerous premarket tobacco product applications (PMTA), as alleged by the manufacturers and affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which accused the FDA of a “regulatory switcheroo”. 

Elizabeth Hicks, US Affairs Analyst of the Consumer Choice Center, stated that the case underscores the need for “fairness and transparency” in regulatory processes. “The FDA’s blanket denials have placed enormous hurdles on firms providing harm-reduction alternatives, potentially decimating an industry that millions of adult consumers rely on to transition away from smoking traditional cigarettes,” she said.

Read the full text here

This week Sweden edged closer to officially becoming “smoke free.” According to the World Health Organization, that is a smoking rate lower than 5%. At 5.3%, and on the current trajectory, it’s not a matter of if Sweden becomes smoke free, but when. As one would expect, Sweden is the only country in Europe where lung cancer isn’t at the top of the list for cancer mortality. 

In Canada, by contrast, lung cancer is the leading cancer killer. Canada has set an ambitious target of cutting the amount of smokers to less than 5% by 2035, which would mean going from 4.6 million Canadian smokers in 2022 to fewer than 1.8 million Canadian smokers in 2035. 

A noble goal, then.

However, as anyone who is a smoker and has tried to quit will likely attest, quitting smoking is extremely difficult and not always a case of quitting cold turkey. 

Therefore one way to encourage quitting smoking includes transitioning to products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

Unfortunately however, Ottawa, at every step, has made it harder for smokers trying to quit through a myriad of bad policies.

Take nicotine pouches. Despite the fact that they are 99% less harmful than cigarettes, according to German researchers, Health Minister Mark Holland has restricted available flavours to just mint/menthol, and banned pouches from being sold alongside cigarettes. 

The cognitive dissonance here is rather astounding. In Holland’s view, corner stores can be trusted to sell cigarettes, specifically not selling them to minors, but they can’t be trusted to sell an exponentially less risky product like pouches? There is a long list of former health regulators who agree that these are useful as a quitting tool, including the former head of the U.S. FDA Scott Gotlieb, saying “we have to embrace them and offer adult smokers modified risk products”.

The hypocrisy of course isn’t limited to pouches. It also includes Ottawa’s approach to vaping. 

Ottawa seems hellbent on following through on the promise to ban vape flavours, despite the fact that vaping is 95 per cent less harmful than smoking, according to Public Health England. Their research shows that given its success, public health messaging should encourage smokers to make the switch, not make it harder. 

South of the border, a nationally representative longitudinal study of over 17,000 Americans showed that adults who used flavoured vaping products were 2.3 times more likely to quit smoking cigarettes when compared to vapers who consumed tobacco-flavoured vaping products. Continuing the war on vaping all but ensures Canada will never meet its 5 per cent target by 2030.

And it doesn’t end there either, unfortunately. Heat-not-burn products, which heat tobacco rather than combust it, have been shown to reduce the harm of intoxicants by around 90 per cent when compared to cigarettes.

The USA’s FDA has gone as far as to authorize marketing these products as a product that “significantly reduces the production of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals”.

However, the Canadian government is not making that transition easy for Canadians either. Rather than lend an encouraging hand to those who would like to be a part of their ambitious 2035 goal, the government taxes these products the same way they do traditional cigarettes.

The purported use of “excise stamps” — in actuality a sin tax— on traditional cigarettes is to discourage people from purchasing this harmful product, and of course to raise money for the government. However, if it is proven that heat-not-burn products reduce harm to the smoker and potentially acts as a way for people to transition towards quitting smoking, then the purpose of the tax no longer makes sense.

The current excise sin tax demands a minimum of 50 gram excise stamps. This tax means that tobacco in a twenty-pack of heat-not-burn units which weighs 5.33 grams is taxed the same amount as a package containing 50 grams. That means Canadians are paying this sin tax at nine times more than the regular rate, and three times more than a pack of twenty traditional cigarettes. 

How can Canadians looking to switch to a less harmful product or who wish to quit smoking rationalize such a cost? It would certainly seem to run counter to the Canadian government’s attempt to curb smoking by 2035.

At the end of the day Canada has to make a decision: do we want to follow Sweden’s lead and meet the target we’ve set for ourselves or not? The playbook for success is there, but only if we have the willingness to see what is right in front of us.

Originally published here

The government intends to introduce a ban on TV advertisements of junk food before 9 PM, a proposed tax on salt and foods high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS), and a strengthened version of the previously failed Tobacco and Vapes Bill that extends the prohibition of smoking to outdoor space.

This comes as a set of so called preventative measures to bolster public health.

In a statement, Mike Salem, UK Associate for the Consumer Choice Center (CCC), argued that this is not the right approach to improve public health:

“Time and time again, we have seen failures of policymakers to understand what “preventative measures” actually mean. The reality is that taxing these goods will only hurt the worse off, who will continue to consume these products, at a distorted price or downgraded quality.”

Salem added that taxes on goods create a “deadweight loss”, which is a loss of welfare for everyone, including consumers, producers, and the government due to markets not reaching equilibrium.

Read the full text here

In every gas station and convenience store, a new category of addictive products is flying off shelves. This new thorn in the side of public health advocates is tobacco nicotine pouches. These pouches are made of wood pulp and salt, filled with nicotine, and flavors placed under the upper lip to give the user a buzzing sensation. 

What do we make of this new nicotine rush and what it means for society? As our smoking rate declines to an all-time low of just 11 percent, it means we’re in for a paradigm shift in how we view nicotine. And we should welcome it.

On social media and Wall Street, pouches have become a craze. Politicians like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have deemed them “quiet and dangerous,” asking the FDA to crack down. Health Minister Mark Holland has banned flavored varieties in Canada and restricted their sales to only pharmacies. And nicotine products have become a cultural fixation heralded by GOP members of Congress, broadcaster Tucker Carlson, and the political campaign of Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance.

With people more aware of the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes, adult smokers have begun shifting their addictions to products deemed less risky. Entrepreneurs and tobacco firms have delivered on this trend, but public institutions have been less tactful in response.

Alternative nicotine products like vaping devices, gums and pouches have markedly lower risk than cigarettes. They could help save some of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost to smoking illnesses each year. Despite the scientific evidence in favor of alternative nicotine products, the FDA continues to be outdated and obstinate. The FDA regulates vaping devices and pouches as “tobacco products” — even though they do not contain tobacco.

The FDA’s Premarket Tobacco Product Application restricts sales of these new products, forcing firms to endure a byzantine application and review process that is insurmountable for any small business. Of the nearly 27 million applications, just 34 vaping devices or nicotine alternatives have been authorized, all of which are primarily products of tobacco firms that can afford the compliance costs.

And while perceptions across health and political establishments sour on the utility of these products, and make them less available to adults, they’ve also become captive to outright misinformation.

A 2020 study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine revealed that more than 80 percent of U.S. physicians surveyed wrongly believe that “nicotine causes cancer” rather than smoking itself. According to a recent Gallup survey, 79 percent of Americans believe cigarettes are very harmful, and 57 percent say the same about vaping devices. That number dips to 34 percent for nicotine pouches.

Public health institutions have contributed to these false perceptions, buoyed by a vibrant industry of philanthropists who would prefer to outlaw nicotine altogether. While youth access to nicotine products should continue to be of paramount concern to regulators, we should also recognize that technological innovation has delivered a less harmful way for adults to use nicotine once they’re addicted.

It’s time our institutions reflect this reality.

First, the FDA must communicate to adults the truth about nicotine alternatives to traditional tobacco products. Whether it’s pouches or flavored nicotine vaping devices, the risk of using these products would be significantly lower.

Second, governments should tax lower-risk nicotine products less. Pouches and vaping products should not be taxed the same as cigarettes. If sin taxes are here to stay, they should at least be proportionate and nudge consumers toward less risky products.

This has been the approach of countries such as Sweden, which now boasts some of the lowest smoking-related illness rates in the world.

Third, in the private sector, the health and insurance industries must accept the risk profile of the new generation of nicotine products and recalibrate their plans. Many health and life insurance policies still equate smoking cigarettes with using non-tobacco nicotine products. That practice should change to reflect scientific reality and facts.

Misguided public policy forces adult smokers to choose between an arbitrarily limited number of legal options, many of which are decades-old legacy products, the rampant illicit market for illegal disposable vapes and nicotine pouches, or continuing to smoke cigarettes.

When they do switch, our institutions are set up to continue to punish them with higher taxes and insurance policies. This cannot stand. As our culture updates its perception of nicotine, we should make sure our policies do the same. That is the best way to save lives and lower healthcare costs for most people.

Originally published here