OTTAWA, ON – Yesterday, Ottawa announced new rules for nicotine pouches, which will ban flavours except for mint/menthol, and ban the sale of pouches in convenience stores and gas stations. The Consumer Choice Center’s David Clement explained how these rules are counterproductive for the goal of reducing smoking rates, and do very little to address the issue of youth access. 

“Ironically, and tragically, these new rules are done in the name is discouraging youth access, while failing to take the most basic step towards limiting youth access, which would have been to age-gate nicotine products in line with the age to buy cigarettes. Mark Holland could have rather easily age restricted nicotine products as a step to reduce youth access. Unfortunately, he decided against that, and in favour of rules that will ultimately make it harder for smokers to quit smoking,” said Clement.

“Nicotine pouches should be sold at convenience stores and gas stations, because that is where cigarettes are sold. It’s vital that smokers are given access to smoking cessation tools at the point of sale where they buy cigarettes, otherwise these significantly less harmful alternatives won’t be known,” said Clement.

“And rather than banning flavours other than mint/menthol, the Health Minister could have simply just age-restricted all nicotine products to ensure that youth don’t have access to them. The cognitive dissonance in this policy change is astounding. Convenience stores and gas stations are trusted to sell cigarettes, which has lethal consequences, but apparently cannot be trusted to sell a product that is 99% less harmful and doesn’t cause cancer,” said Clement.

“The selective application of the principles of harm reduction are counterproductive, and hypocritical. These new regulations are a mistake, especially when and easy solution for youth access was available,” concluded Clement.

The Consumer Choice Center is an independent, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group championing the benefits of freedom of choice, innovation, and abundance in everyday life for consumers in over 100 countries. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Washington, Brussels, Ottawa, Brasilia, London, and Geneva.