Canadian guideline places vapes last in tools to quit smoking list
Sarah Palmer, Features Editor |
E-cigarettes, disposables, puffs, mods—no matter the name, nicotine vapes came onto the scene as the traditional tobacco cigarettes’ trendy alternative, believed to offer the same sensation with a fraction of the side effects.
But according to new guidelines by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, vaping should be viewed as a last resort for those seeking to quit cigarette smoking.
The report, published on Aug. 25 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, states that despite some e-cigarette users saying that the devices helped kick their cravings, the downside of underresearched ingredients outweighs the benefits.
“We suggest against using e-cigarettes for smoking cessation for most people because of uncertainty about unapproved products, long-term harms, and public health impacts,” read the report.
“Most people should first consider other options other than e-cigarettes to stop smoking.”
Instead, the report recommended that nonpregnant adults aged 18 years or older should turn to behavioural tools, such as counselling, and pharmacotherapy—medication or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)—to curb their hankering.
Including gum, patches, lozenges, inhalers, and sprays, the use of NRTs, either individually or in combination with behavioural tools, is believed to be the most effective approach, regardless of someone’s smoking habits.
Vaping, even when used alongside NRTs, was found by past research to have barely made a dent in changing the routine of cigarette smokers. But recent data shows that most of today’s e-cigarette users never smoked cigarettes to begin with.
Vaping’s grip on Gen Z
In Canada, it took 14 years after the devices first entered the market to be legalized. Around that time, in the early 2000s, Health Canada issued an advisory against them, but this ban was never enforced.
Instead, over a decade later, in May 2018, the opposite happened when Bill S-5—amendments to the Tobacco Act and the Non-Smokers Health Act—passed, which effectively legalized the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes to adults.
According to the Canadian Lung Association (CLA), updates to Bill S-5 included some regulations regarding marketing and safety, but these “didn’t go far enough in preventing youth from using vaping products.”
In 2022, the Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey found that 20 per cent of youth aged 20 to 24 reported having vaped in the past month, compared to 14 per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 and four per cent of Canadians over the age of 25.
Even more, in the same study surveying middle and high school students, 17 per cent of youth enrolled in grades 7 to 12 reported using a vape in the past month. Despite almost all of the respondents being underage, 55 per cent of them said obtaining a nicotine vape was easy.
While it may seem logical to assume that young adults are picking up vaping more than minors, university students in 2022 matched their junior counterparts, with 17 per cent of them having vaped in the past month, according to the Canadian Postsecondary Education Alcohol and Drug Use Survey.
Why this is concerning, as the CLA outlines, is due to e-cigarette flavours commonly containing the ingredient glycerol, which is linked to causing irreversible damage, such as pulmonary lung disease, and death in extreme cases.
However, the Government of Canada says that, though vaping is not an approved tool for quitting cigarettes by Health Canada, e-cigarettes are not linked to cancer and contain over 7,000 fewer chemicals than tobacco, making them a decent substitute.
But with the surge in adolescents picking up puffs, the CLA urges that the government ban additives and flavours in addition to Alberta’s preexisting regulations, being the 20 mg nicotine cap and sales tax hike.
“The rise in popularity among young Canadians is staggering,” read the report. “With ongoing aggressive marketing and promotion of these products, there is concern that the numbers of youth vaping will continue to rise.”
