Madam Speaker, indeed, we must do everything we can as quickly as possible to prevent young people from starting to smoke, whether it is tobacco, vaping products, or marijuana. I completely agree. There was nothing ambivalent about my comments. On the contrary, I believe that we have to be concerned about this and take action.
However, is this the right thing to do? Experts do not agree on that. Does vaping pose less health risks than smoking for someone who wants to stop smoking? Should we allow vaping to help young people stop smoking? Are we really going to stop young people from smoking by changing a label, even though we know that they already buy cigarettes on the black market, cigarettes that are generally not branded and whose contents we know nothing about?
As MPs, it is our responsibility to create better regulations to make these products less accessible. I am not one of those people who believe that we will reduce consumption by legalizing this and creating all kinds of regulations. We have to make people understand that it is dangerous. They have to accept this and we must put in place various measures to prevent people from starting to smoke and to help them quit. Instead of spending weeks on trying to regulate this and finding a way to legalize it so we supposedly have greater control, we have to strike at the root of the problem.