Imperial Tobacco Canada has said it believes that Health Canada can achieve the goal of reducing Canada’s smoking rate to less than five percent ahead of the target date of 2035.
It could do this, it added, by embracing the principles of harm reduction: by allowing smokers to choose alternatives to cigarettes, such as vaping and tobacco-heating products.
Imperial yesterday issued a statement to mark National Non-Smoking Week.
‘Tobacco Heating Products (THPs) and vaping products are battery-powered devices that do not use combustion to deliver nicotine, with the consumer instead inhaling vapor, not smoke,’ the statement said. ‘The vast majority of toxicants in cigarette emissions are the product of combustion, and with no combustion, the result is far fewer toxicants.
‘A report by the UK Royal College of Physicians states that because “most of the harm caused by smoking arises not from nicotine but from other components of tobacco smoke, the health and life expectancy of today’s smokers could be radically improved by encouraging as many as possible to switch to a smoke-free source of nicotine”.’
“In order to provide smokers with options between cigarettes and other alternatives – with no combustion and therefore potentially less risk – it is essential that Canada introduces regulations that can communicate their harm reduction potential,” Eric Gagnon, head of corporate and regulatory affairs, was quoted as saying. “With a reasonable and sustainable regulatory framework that supports harm reduction and next generation products, the federal government can reduce the public health impact of tobacco.”
Imperial said that the sale of nicotine-containing vaping products was currently illegal in Canada unless they had been approved by Health Canada. And since none of the products currently on the Canadian market had been approved, they were all illicit.
‘Bill S-5, which is currently before the House of Commons, seeks to legalize and introduce a regulatory framework for vaping products,’ Imperial said in its statement. ‘The Bill’s resulting regulations will have a significant impact on smokers who may choose to migrate from traditional cigarettes to smoke-free products.
‘Some governments, including that of the UK, have already taken a pragmatic approach to some of these new products and are actively providing smokers with proper information.’
“As part of the world’s largest and most international tobacco and nicotine company, we understand the complex needs of smokers, and this is why our company has invested more than US$2.5 billion since 2012 to develop a range of next generation products (NGPs) such as vapor and tobacco heating products,” said Gagnon. “It is crucial that the federal government changes its current approach toward NGPs to allow adult smokers to choose potentially less harmful products if they wish.”
Imperial said that the expiry of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy in March 2018 would present an additional opportunity for the federal government to recognize how embracing harm-reduction principles could achieve its five percent goal, rather than adding more radical and ineffective control measures on tobacco products that only served to fuel the further growth of illicit tobacco.
“To lower the smoking rate, Canada should focus its efforts on building consumer awareness of less-risky alternatives to smoking, and crack down on the illegal tobacco industry that continues to grow and supplies more than 20 percent of the market with unregulated and untaxed cigarettes,” said Gagnon.
Tag: Canada
New approach suggested
Ban seen as discriminatory
A proposed smoking and vaping ban on restaurant patios in Winnipeg, Canada, is being called discriminatory by some local smokers, according to a story by Maggie Macintosh for the Winnipeg Free Press.
Winnipeg is the last major Canadian municipality where people can smoke while enjoying a meal or patio beer, but that may not be the case by the spring.
Winnipeg’s community services department has recommended a ban on the use of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, electronic cigarettes, water pipes, hookahs and ‘similar products/devices’ on outdoor patios where food or drinks are served.
If the City Council approves the ban it will go into force on April 1.
One smoker interviewed described the proposed ban as offensive. The fact that she was a smoker didn’t make her any less of a restaurant customer.
But councillor Mike Pagtakhan, who doubles as the chairman of the standing policy committee that moved the motion to introduce the ban, said 76 percent of Winnipeggers surveyed, which was “an accurate cross-section” of the city, supported a ban on outdoor patio smoking.
About 21 percent of men and 12 percent of women smoke in Manitoba, according to 2014 Statistics Canada data.
Some of those interviewed believed that the issue could be addressed by having separate patio areas for smokers and non-smokers.
And others thought that decisions about patio bans should be left to the business owners.
But Pagtakhan said that since Winnipeg was the last major city in Canada to ban smoking on patios, it was “about time” to do so.Patio tyrants rule in Canada
Vaping and tobacco smoking could be banned on restaurant and bar patios in the Canadian city of Winnipeg later this year, according to a number of media reports.
A CBC News story said a report from Winnipeg’s community services department had recommended a ban on the use of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, electronic cigarettes, water pipes, hookahs and ‘similar products/devices’ on outdoor patios where food or drinks were served.
If the City Council approves the ban it will go into force on April 1 and Winnipeg will become the last major city in Canada to outlaw patio smoking.
In a telephone survey of 600 ‘randomly selected’ adults carried out between September 21 and October 10, the city found that 76 percent of people supported a patio smoking ban at restaurants and 58 percent supported a ban at bars.
Community by-law enforcement manager Winston Yee reported to council’s protection and community services committee that a scan of patio smoking bans in other cities had revealed little impact on businesses.
‘Implementation and compliance was achieved primarily through a combination of public and industry education, and providing support to business owners through a transition period,’ he said.
‘Most municipalities reported limited need for enforcement due to general public acceptance and co-operation from business owners.’
Yee said also that all other jurisdictions had created an exemption for the ceremonial Indigenous use of tobacco. And during an interview he indicated that Winnipeg would offer the same exemption.
In addition, bars could continue to allow smoking in outdoor areas on private property where no food or drinks were served, Yee said. But these areas would have to be permanent.Suffering from the cure?
In Canada, The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine has published the results of research indicating that users of Varenicline, a commonly prescribed drug for smoking cessation, were 34 percent more likely than non-users to require an emergency department visit or hospitalization for a cardiovascular event while taking the drug.
The authors said that the study was observational and could not determine cause and effect.
According to a EurekAlert! story relayed by the TMA, the study analyzed the medical records of 56,851 new users of Varenicline between September 2011 and February 2015 living in Ontario.
“Previous studies regarding the safety of Varenicline have been conflicting and most examined people with relatively similar characteristics and backgrounds in highly controlled settings,” said lead study author Andrea S. Gershon, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and a scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Ontario, Canada.
Plainly not working
Five years after Australia introduced standardized packaging on all tobacco products, data show that the policy has had no impact on reducing smoking across the country, according to a press note issued by Imperial Tobacco Canada through PRNewswire.
While the Australian government had admitted earlier this year that smoking rates had not declined since the introduction of standardized packaging – the first time the rates had not decreased in more than two decades – neither its Department of Health nor Canada’s normally-vocal anti-tobacco lobby had made any statements in response to the five-year milestone, the note said.
“We are not surprised that the data clearly indicates that implementing plain packaging has not worked in Australia,” Eric Gagnon, head of external and corporate affairs for Imperial Tobacco, was quoted as saying. “It’s time Canada recognized that efforts to legislate plain packaging will result in similar numbers.”
France, Imperial Tobacco said, had discovered the same. Tobacco sales had not decreased in the year since the country had introduced standardized packaging, and last week the country’s health minister, Agnès Buzyn, had stated in the legislature that “plain packaging has therefore not reduced official tobacco sales”.
“The answer to reducing the number of smokers is not, and has never been, plain packaging,” said Gagnon. “Plain packaging however does impact the sale of contraband tobacco products. Australia’s introduction of the legislation corresponded with a significant increase in the market share of illegal tobacco in the country, rising over 25 percent in the first two years [according to the KPMG report, Illicit tobacco in Australia 2016, https://home.kpmg.com/uk/en/home/insights/2017/04/illicit-tobacco-in-australia-2016.html].
“Plain packaging forces legal companies to abandon their symbols of legitimacy and makes it easier to counterfeit tobacco products. Canada must take a step back and look at the data. It’s the reasonable thing to do.”
Imperial said that as Canada’s Bill S-5, which mandates standardized packaging, moved to its second reading in the House of Commons, it wanted to remind legislators of the inefficiency of such packaging in other countries.
The company said that it supported the objective set forth by Health Canada to reduce the smoking rate to five percent by 2035, but believed the best way of achieving that goal was by offering consumers less-harmful alternatives.
“There is sound evidence telling us that vaping products are less-risky than traditional cigarettes, but they are currently illegal” said Gagnon. “Our government needs to embrace the harm-reduction model supported by other governments and public health experts, and provide Canadians with access to legal regulated vaping products as soon as possible.”
But I never inhaled officer
Scientists at the University of Calgary (UofC) have found that a person can be affected by marijuana smoke without smoking marijuana.
According to a Canadian Television report, a non-smoker can be affected by marijuana smoke just by being in the same room as a pot smoker.
Researchers at the UofC’s Cumming School of Medicine were said to have conducted a four-month study into second-hand marijuana smoke and discovered that, in just a ‘short time’, non-smokers begin to absorb THC [tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary active ingredient in marijuana] while in ‘close proximity’ to a marijuana smoker.
Exposures to second-hand marijuana smoke lasting for as little at 15 minutes could lead to THC being found in a person’s blood and urine at levels that would see her fail regular blood tests, said Fiona Clement, who worked on the study, though this would depend on the THC concentration of the marijuana, the number of joints being smoked and passed around, and the ventilation of the area being used.
Clement said that people needed to be aware of the impacts of second-hand marijuana smoke as the imposition of legalization drew nearer.
The findings of the study have been published in the Canadian Medical Association’s journal.
Prices thrown into pot
If the price of legal marijuana must be competitive with black market marijuana to discourage underground sales, then the same logic should apply to nicotine products, according to a ctvnews.ca story quoting the head of Imperial Tobacco Canada.
Governments across Canada are preparing for marijuana’s legalization in 2018 and are creating legislative frameworks to regulate the industry. Bill Blair, the federal MP tasked with leading the drug’s legalization in Canada, has said the provinces generally agree that the price of legal marijuana should be roughly the same or lower than that of the marijuana that can be found on the street.
And Imperial’s Jorge Araya said that same rationale should apply to nicotine products.
Imperial wasn’t lobbying for lower taxes for traditional cigarettes but was against future increases as well as the federal government’s plan to require standardized packaging, he said.
Araya is lobbying also for a competitive tax regime for what he calls “less-risky” nicotine products, such as heat-not-burn products and electronic cigarettes, which, he says, represent the future of the industry.
“The first step is to stop tax increases provincially and federally because we are getting to a level where illegal tobacco is booming in the country,” Araya said in an interview after a speech organized by Quebec’s main employers’ association.
About 70 percent of the price of a pack of cigarettes was taxes, he said, and the illegal market in Canada represented 25 percent of sales and billions a year in lost revenue for governments.
“We will always advocate for very high taxation with (traditional) cigarettes,” he said. “We have to pay for the externalities and health impacts that we create – what we don’t want is to go higher than we are today,” he said.
Imperial Tobacco supports Bill S-5, which is making its way through the Senate and would legalize nicotine-containing vaping products in the country.
But Araya said the company was against the provision forcing companies to have standardized packaging for cigarettes because that would hinder the consumer’s ability to differentiate between products and with the black market.
Sindy Souffront, spokesperson for Health Canada, said in an email that vaping products, including e-cigarettes and e-liquids that contain nicotine, currently required authorization from Health Canada before they could be imported, advertised or sold in Canada.
“To date, no such products have been approved,” she said. “Under Bill S-5, manufacturers and importers of a vaping product containing nicotine would not be required to seek Health Canada approval, provided that the product does not make therapeutic health claims.”
Araya said that Imperial wanted to discuss nicotine products with the government and reach an agreement on how to treat taxation in a “very sustainable way”.
Meanwhile, a Quebec anti-tobacco coalition said it was misleading to treat tobacco like marijuana because tobacco, unlike pot, was tied to tens of thousands of deaths a year.
Flory Doucas, the group’s spokesperson, said “the goal of (Araya’s) speech was to rally the business community to the defence and interests of cigarette companies by stoking fear regarding new anti-tobacco measures and to publicize their new products.”
While Imperial Tobacco is lobbying the government on regulation, it is also waiting for a major court ruling that could force the company to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to smokers.
In 2015, a Quebec judge ordered three major cigarette companies, including Imperial Tobacco, to pay $15 billion to smokers as part of a class-action lawsuit.
The companies made arguments to the Quebec Court of Appeal about a year ago and are awaiting a decision.
Araya said his company isn’t ruling out going to the Supreme Court of Canada if it lost the appeal.
“Yeah, that’s one of the avenues, to go to the Supreme Court,” he said. “But at the moment that would be speculation. We are very confident about the strength of our arguments.”
‘Hypocrisy’ highlighted
Canada’s National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco (NCACT) said on Friday that it was highlighting the hypocrisy evident in Ontario’s Cannabis Legalization Enforcement Summit. The emphasis at the summit was being placed on enforcement measures to prepare for the legalisation of cannabis, it said, while calls for a similar enforcement approach to the province’s booming contraband tobacco trade had not been heeded.
“A co-ordinated, multi-stakeholder approach to enforcement will be an important component of the province’s effort to address cannabis, which makes the need for a similar initiative for Ontario’s well entrenched contraband tobacco market all the clearer,” said Gary Grant, the national spokesperson for the NCACT. “The participation of multiple stakeholder groups and different levels of government in this discussion is something we’ve been advocating for in relation to the country’s illegal cigarette problem, which is by far the worst in Ontario.”
The NCACT said Ontario had the worst contraband tobacco market in Canada, with more than one in three cigarettes sold in the province being illicit, a rate that had barely budged for several years.
‘In Northern Ontario, the contraband rate is more than 60 percent,’ the NCACT said in a press note. ‘Illegal cigarettes are cheap and readily available costing as little as $8 for a baggie of 200 cigarettes, $70 or more less than legal product. They are available directly from smugglers or hundreds of unlicensed retail smoke shacks. The RCMP has identified 175 criminal gangs involved in the contraband trade, which use the revenues to fund guns, drugs and human smuggling.’
“The approach Ontario has taken to addressing the illegal marijuana market – enforcement and acknowledging impact of price – is the same that would be effective against illegal cigarettes,” said Grant. “We hope we can count on the government to give both of these issues the amount of the attention they deserve.”
Marijuana poses a challenge
The president and CEO of Imperial Tobacco Canada, Jorge Araya, is to address media representatives on the challenges faced by the tobacco industry, including that caused by ‘inconsistencies between proposed regulatory approaches for tobacco and marijuana’.
In a press note, Imperial, which is the largest tobacco company in the country, said it had run its business in an increasingly complex and challenging marketplace since 1908.
‘Today it faces government expropriation of its branding, aggressive competition from a contraband tobacco industry that comprises more than 30 per cent of the market in Ontario, and a soon-to-be-legalized marijuana market,’ the note said.
‘Mr. Araya will discuss these challenges, and particularly the concern that an absence of legal tobacco branding is likely to result in consumers migrating to contraband products.
‘He will also discuss the company’s enthusiasm for less-risky tobacco and nicotine products, and the inconsistencies between proposed regulatory approaches for tobacco and marijuana.’
The media luncheon at which Araya will speak is being hosted by the Empire Club of Canada in Toronto on September 28.
Government accused
The biggest manufacturer of ‘Native cigarettes’ in Canada is suing the federal government for $3 billion for failing to stop the proliferation of contraband tobacco producers, according to a story by Mark Bonokoski for the Toronto Sun.
The lawsuit, filed in the Ontario Court of Appeal at the end of June by Grand River Enterprises’ (GRE) Jerry Montour and three other principals in the company, accuses the Attorney General of Canada of ‘malfeasance in public office, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of aboriginal rights’.
The foursome, all status Indians, is seeking $1.5 billion in damages for revenues allegedly lost to about 50 unlicensed and therefore illicit cigarette manufacturers in the province competing with their brands, and another $1.5 billion for the government’s failure to close them down.
The federal authorities have yet to file a statement of defence.
The lawsuit is based on two theories of liability – the ‘forced incorporation’ of GRE, and the ‘failure’ of the federal government to ‘enforce’ its agreement to come down hard on First Nation cigarette companies manufacturing products without a licence.
Bonokoski said that a raid by the RCMP on GRE in the mid-1990s resulted in GRE agreeing to pay federal excise taxes to avoid being shut down, while, for their part, the federal authorities promised to ‘intensify enforcement against contraband to level the playing field between GRE and other on-reserve tobacco manufacturers’.
GRE argues in the court document that the federal government, namely through the Attorney General’s office, has failed to implement or administer what has been cited as the 1994 Anti-Smuggling Initiative and, as a result of not enforcing laws against the production of contraband cigarettes by other First Nation profiteers, has caused Montour and company to incur substantial losses.
Bonokoski’s piece is at: http://www.torontosun.com/2017/07/15/first-nations-cigarette-maker-suing-the-feds-for-billions.
