Health Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[Gerry Harrington]

Yes, there are potential conflicts there. I understand the question. Certainly I don't have a concern over it. I think a health product company is a health product company. So natural health product medicine and we have the same objectives, the health of Canadians. Certainly I think there's the potential there for a conflict, or a different set of motivations, for a tobacco company owned e-cigarette company because they're in the business of selling an addiction to nicotine. It's a different proposition from smoking cessation.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

It's a well-established big business practice to buy out competition and not only maintain product control but limit the products that might be competing with your main product line. I just wanted to ask your opinion on that.

We were talking about advertising a moment ago and there were some very good examples of emotional advertising targeting young people, particularly young men, I would suppose, with the evocative images of young women there and so on. We've seen others in the past with the bubble gum flavours and so on. Did you mention in your list of things restricting the flavours available?

[Gerry Harrington]

I did not actually, but certainly the regulation of marketing activity is broader than just advertising. I think if you look at, for example, the natural health product regulations and the Food and Drugs Act, they do capture a broader range of potential activities than advertising. I think it would address the kinds of issues you're raising there.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

One of the recommendations from the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, who presented a few moments ago, is that e-cigarettes in part should be required to meet the same minimum manufacturing standards as other products under the Canadian consumer protection law and that should be actively enforced. Would your organization support that as well?

[Gerry Harrington]

Absolutely.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

We have heard from other witnesses that in fact the temperature of vaping is actually important to control the number of toxins. Although it's generally admitted that vaping produces far less toxins than combustion, if the temperature is too low in this case, in fact it may produce more formaldehyde and or acetaldehyde, as I understand it. So you support that particular recommendation, childproof bottles and so on. I think we're in agreement there.

Mr. Chair, basically I've covered the areas of where I want to go. There are two minutes left.

Mr. Young, did you have a further question?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I just have a quick question for Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones, I understand what you're saying about the health benefits of switching to vaping. I understand that. But we were told by a previous witness, this nice lady from Quebec, that the use of tobacco products has not gone down even though vaping has created all these new vapers. That would indicate, based on what you say, that for people such as yourself, tobacco use has gone down for you, but it indicates that others have started smoking tobacco. It has created new smokers or that the existing smokers have somehow started smoking a lot more, which doesn't really make much sense to me. What concerns do you have for the fact that vaping has led to new people addicted to nicotine who may then be switching to tobacco?

[Dave Jones]

All the surveys and studies that we have found, including Health Canada's own, have not shown that fact. In fact, smoking among youth has gone down.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Yes, but do you accept those figures? On one hand, the use of tobacco products hasn't gone down, but we know in cases like yours it has. You said you're in touch with 10,000 people who have switched to vaping, so why hasn't the use of tobacco products gone down? There must be new people starting to smoke tobacco.

[Dave Jones]

I'm sure that has happened, but are you attributing that to vaping? That has not been shown.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I don't know what to attribute it to, and I recognize there's a need for research. I just wonder what your view is.

[Dave Jones]

From my perspective, people will start smoking, of course, but what we have found is that vaping is not the cause of that. Most people who use e-cigarettes and vaping are basically all smokers. That is a proven fact. That has been studied and shown to be true. When you talk about electronic cigarettes, we're talking about existing smokers at this moment. When you talk about people taking up cigarettes, those people aren't using vaping products.

The same thing also exists for youth. That has also shown that youth smoking has gone down. When you try to attribute vapour or even the use of electronic cigarettes to going to smoking, that is not proven as well. Those are record low numbers as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Kellway.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here with us today.

Mr. Jones, you described yourself at the beginning as a vaping advocate. I think that's the way you framed it. Your advocacy for vaping, as I understand it, is really based on a tobacco harm reduction approach. You see these electronic cigarettes as effective cessation devices.

In the witnesses we've had before us, it seems that the response to e-cigarettes varies from the people tending to be closer to the precautionary principle along the continuum to harm reduction. You seem to fall more on harm reduction than a lot of other folks we've heard, except one of our witnesses from the U.K. It's interesting that you cite so many studies in the U.K.

The interesting thing about the U.K. is they have a much higher incidence of tobacco use than we do, and laxer regulations around tobacco use and where tobacco can be smoked. There's smoking in public places, and all the rest of it. It seems that in Canada we've come much, much farther than the U.K. in terms of control of smoking, and our numbers of smokers are lower, etc.

The policy approach seems to be that you have to take into account the specific context you're in, in terms of your regulatory approach. It seems to me that your harm reduction approach seems a bit out of step with the Canadian context, where we are in terms of incidence of smoking here. It may be an approach that is useful and rational in the context of the U.K., but perhaps not in Canada.

Have you given that any thought?

[Dave Jones]

Certainly. That's a very good question.

I think tobacco harm reduction states what it is. We have five million smokers in Canada. That's not an insignificant statistic. We have five million people who could possibly die, so do we just not do anything for those people? Tobacco harm reduction will assist, and we believe that electronic cigarettes, vaping, will help slow down those people smoking.

There are 37,000 people who die every year. That is an appalling statistic. So what do you do? Are you telling those people, “Sorry, we don't care”? I think this product will certainly help alleviate the suffering and the deaths not only attributable to those 37,000 people who die, but also for their families and for the future.

I think it's something we should certainly support, be it in Canada, the U.S., or the U.K. We are talking about real people and we're talking about real deaths.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

I think one of the challenges you face, though, with this approach that's farther over toward the harm reduction, is the issue of accessibility, right? Your argument is largely to make them far more accessible to people as a smoking cessation device, but you also express concerns about accessibility in regard to minors.

You pay some heed to that in your presentation, but it seems, if I might say—and let me know your views on this—to be a rather casual approach to access in regard to minors. I wonder if you can tell me about that kind of consistency between saying that we need to make them more available.... But these are not very effective barriers, it seems to me, in looking at your proposal in regard to access by minors.

[Dave Jones]

I think the main ban is to ban them for those under 18. The access there is like it is for anything else. You ban children from drinking alcohol at 18. We propose the same type of law, that they be banned.

Again, the access to electronic cigarettes is for smokers. It is not a smoking cessation device. Everybody thinks we want to quit smoking. Certainly, we would like to quit smoking, but on our own terms. How we do that is our own choice. Of course, if we're able to quit smoking totally, including vaping, that's great, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

It helps us to have a safe alternative as we try to get away from smoking. It helps us do that. Everybody thinks it's a smoking cessation device. It can be used as a smoking cessation device, and it's basically for smokers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

We have a bit of time left.

Mr. Lizon, do you have any questions?

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

The first question I have, through you, Mr. Chair, is for Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones, what is your professional background?

[Dave Jones]

I was in the military for 40 years, and I smoked for 40 years.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Okay. Therefore, I understand.

[Dave Jones]

I'm not a medical doctor.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

No, the reason I'm asking this is that some claims you made in your presentation—I understand that you have good intentions and you like to fight for the good cause—contradict the statements that were made here by professionals in the medical field. I don't know where you're getting your information from.

For example, when you say that big tobacco and big pharma profits are decreasing, I don't know where you got that information, because we've just heard that there is no decrease in the smoking level, an, on top of it, we have another product that people are buying. Therefore, actually, we have an increase in profits and an increase in sales of both tobacco and e-cigarettes now.

I wonder if you have any idea.... You have good intentions, but if we were in an ideal situation, an ideal world, what we would be looking for through e-cigarettes is a huge decrease in the tobacco smokers and an increase that is more or less the same on the side of e-cigarettes, and eventually those people who use e-cigarettes would maybe quit smoking altogether. But none of this is happening. Do you have any idea on how we should proceed going forward, such that this actually happens?

[Dave Jones]

We have access to experts in the field, including medical experts and THR experts as well. We get our information from those people.

We also look at studies. Yesterday, the CDC stated on their site that tobacco smoking has declined. It's down from 45 million people to 42 million people. That's from the CDC. So I would state that smoking has declined—

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I don't want to argue on this, but we heard something opposite.