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?
