Imperial Tobacco Canada - Tobacco Reporter

Illicit Market Thriving After Flavor Ban: ITCAN

One year after Quebec banned non-tobacco flavored vapes, most vapers are buying such products illegally in the province, according to Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITCAN).

In a survey carried out by Leger, 61 percent of vapers said that they purchased non-tobacco flavored vapor products in the past 12 months. Forty percent of those respondents said that they purchased an illegal flavored vapor product from a vape shop, and 33 percent of those respondents said they purchased flavored vapor products online. Forty-seven percent of those respondents said they knew it was illegal when they purchased a flavored vapor product

“If the government’s objective was to create an untaxed and unregulated vapor market, then well done and mission accomplished,” said ITCAN Vice President of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Eric Gagnon in a statement.

ITCAN attributed the problem in part to weak enforcement. “A report from the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux (MSSS) website reveals that only 150 (38 percent of all vape shops) have been inspected by MSSS,” the company wrote. “Worse yet, very few fines have been issued with reports showing only 28 of those 150 received fines, even though more than 90 percent are uncompliant.”

ITCAN urged the government to train inspectors, issue fines heavy enough to deter illegal players and conduct an “enforcement blitz” to demonstrate the gravity of the situation, among other suggestions.

November 1, 2024

Imperial Certified as Great Workplace

Imperial Tobacco Canada has been certified as a Great Place to Work.

“We are immensely proud of this recognition, especially that it comes directly from feedback received by our employees. We put enormous efforts into creating an environment where we can all shine and achieve our full potential,” said Frank Silva, president of Imperial Tobacco Canada. “We face many challenges in our business, but we do so together, and our people know that we will always do the right thing.”

To achieve this certification, Great Place to Work surveyed all 500 employees of Imperial Tobacco Canada. This employee-led certification is based on employees’ direct feedback as part of an extensive and anonymous survey about their workplace experience, which measures the level of trust that employees experience in their leaders, the level of pride they have in their jobs and the extent to which they enjoy their colleagues.

“This certification reflects our ongoing efforts to prioritize employee satisfaction, well-being and professional development. We remain committed to fostering an inclusive environment where every team member feels valued and empowered to contribute their best work. This achievement inspires us to continue our journey toward excellence in workplace culture, ensuring that we remain a preferred employer of choice in our industry,” said Lito Charet, vice president of human resources and inclusion.

July 3, 2024

‘Carcinogens Among Permitted Additives’

Canada’s proposed list of permitted vapor product additives includes dangerous ingredients, according to Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITCAN).

“To put it bluntly, the list contains at least one known substance that could cause cancer,” said ITCAN Vice President, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Eric Gagnon in a statement.

According to ITCAN, several ingredients on the flavor ban proposal list of permitted ingredients are substances that its parent company, British American Tobacco, categorically avoids in its vaping products.

The company says BAT’s toxicological risk assessment prevents the use of substances classified as having carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic (CMR) properties, as per the Globally Harmonized System for classification and labelling of substances.

“It is shocking that the government would include a proven and classified CMR substance in its lists of permitted additives for vaping products,” ITCAN wrote on its website. “The effect of a regulation that formally permits such ingredients is simply an encouragement to manufacturers—particularly smaller producers with limited access to scientific literature—to use an inherently unsafe substance in a product that is designed to be inhaled into the lungs.”

Gagnon cited isophorone as an example. “This substance is classified by the European Union as cancer-causing and acutely toxic. It is also banned by Canadian food and drug regulations from use in human cosmetics,” he said.

“We encourage Health Canada to reconsider the list and consult with experts to determine the best way forward.”

June 14, 2024

‘Quebec Lobby Groups Blind to Illicit Trade’

Imperial Tobacco Canada is taking anti-tobacco groups to task for their silence about the boom in illicit sales following Quebec’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes.

“You cannot claim ‘Mission Accomplished’ by simply passing regulations,” said Eric Gagnon, vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs for Imperial Tobacco Canada, in a statement. “The regulations must work. And these ones don’t. Flavored vapor products are still being sold in Quebec. The problem is that they are now being sold illegally.”

Quebec banned flavored vapes Oct. 31, 2023, following years of pressure by anti-tobacco groups. According to Imperial Tobacco Cananda, the same groups refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem with the regulations and will not call on the government to fully enforce the regulations.

“It’s time that the Coalition Quebecoise pour le controle du tabac and other so-called health groups acknowledge that there is a problem with the regulations and push to fix it,” Gagnon said. “If the real objective of the regulations was to ban flavors, where are these health groups now that flavored vapor products are being sold illegally?”

Imperial Tobacco Canada noted that some of the lobby groups have ties to the provincial government and receive funding from them.

“It is time for the public to see the real intentions behind these anti-tobacco lobby groups,” said Gagnon. “They hide behind the virtue of public health, but their recent silence demonstrates that their only real objective is going after tobacco companies, even if this means pushing consumers to illegal products.”

“It is astonishing to see that Quebec’s anti-tobacco lobbyists prefer turning a blind eye to illegal flavored vaping products rather than recognizing that this is a failed policy and working with us to demand concrete enforcement measures to Minister Dube,” said Gagnon. “This says a lot about the real intention behind the individuals leading these organizations.”

May 2, 2024

ITCAN Launches Zonnic Awareness Campaign

Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITCAN) launched a public awareness campaign about its Zonnic nicotine pouches. The company says it aims to dispel myths and prove accurate, science-based information about nicotine-replacement therapies (NRT) and Zonnic’s potential role in reducing smoking in Canada.

“Our new Zonnic campaign fact-checks what’s being said about Zonnic nicotine pouches and reflects our dedication to harm reduction and our commitment to help reduce smoking rates in Canada,” said ITCAN President and CEO Frank Silva in a statement.

Since Zonnic’s launch in October, anti-tobacco lobby groups and the Federal Minister of Health have targeted ITCAN with accusations and inaccuracies, according to the company.

“Our intentions are clear; we want to help smokers who want to quit smoking, period,” said Silva. “This starts by distributing new and innovative options and by keeping these products available to adult smokers while ensuring that minors don’t have access to any kind of nicotine products, including NRTs. Our position is that all forms of NRT should require proof of age before purchase and be stored at retail in a way that is inaccessible to minors.

“We have tried to meet with Minister Holland. Our door is always open, but he has not returned our calls. We are more than open to a fair discussion, based on facts, to keep NRTs accessible to adult smokers while keeping nicotine products out of the hands of youth. Working together, we can achieve your ministry’s goal, a goal that we share.”

April 15, 2024

Health Groups Urge Pouch Prescriptions

Leading health organizations are urging Canadian lawmakers to crack down on flavored nicotine products and make nicotine pouches available upon prescription only.

In a full-page ad in The Hill Times, Action on Smoking and Health, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Lung Association, the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, Heart and Stroke, and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada assert that flavors play a key role in attracting kids to nicotine products and call on the federal government to ban flavors, including mint and menthol, in e-cigarettes.

The ad also calls for action to protect minors against the sale and promotion of nicotine pouches by making them a prescription-only product. Under the current federal rules, nicotine pouches authorized under the Natural Health Products Regulation can be legally sold to minors in convenience stores and promoted on television, billboards and social media, including by means of lifestyle advertising.

“Several additional options are available to the health minister, like temporarily suspending the sale of nicotine products, which would also allow federal, provincial and territorial authorities to strengthen relevant laws and regulations. For example, nicotine pouches could be subject to many of [the] same provisions regarding promotion that apply to tobacco and vaping products,” said Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, in a statement.

The ad is in part a response to the success of Imperial Tobacco Canada’s Zonnic pouches, which Health Canada approved for sale in 2023. The health groups rebuffed the company’s insistence that its pouches are intended for adult smokers who want to quit. “Unlike other manufacturers of nicotine-replacement therapies, this company deliberately chose to distribute its product through convenience stores and promote them with lifestyle messaging and images of young adults,” said Flory Doucas, co-director and spokesperson of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control.

February 21, 2024

BC Restricts Pouch Sales to Pharmacies

British Columbia has restricted the sale of nicotine pouches to drug stores, forcing users to consult a pharmacists prior to purchase, reports CBC.

“By limiting access to these products and ensuring they are dispensed by trained health-care professionals, our goal is to prevent their misuse, especially among young people for recreational purposes,” said Health Minister Adrian Dix.

The Canadian Cancer Society applauded the move, noting that while youth smoking rates in B.C. are down, other methods of nicotine consumption are up significantly.

“With the introduction of flavored nicotine pouches last year, youth once again can become addicted to these new tobacco industry products,” it said in a statement.

BAT subsidiary Imperial Tobacco Canada, manufacturer of the Zonnic nicotine pouch brand that was authorized for sale by Health Canada in October 2023, said British Columbia’s move would make it harder for smokers to quit.

“It is mindboggling that the only cessation product in BC that is currently stored behind the counter in convenience stores with retailers requiring age-verification is being targeted by today’s announcement,” said Eric Gagnon, vice-president, corporate and regulatory affairs at Imperial Tobacco Canada, in a statement.

“If today’s announcement was truly about protecting youth against nicotine, we question why Premier Eby isn’t putting the same restrictions on the other cessation products that contain nicotine and are available over the counter without proof-of-age,” he added.

In November, federal health minister Mark Holland said regulators had been “duped” and vowed to close the loophole that allowed Zonnic to be sold openly.

“There are very serious questions about what the tobacco industry is doing here and what their intention is. And it would seem that their intention is to addict new young people to nicotine, which is disgusting,” Holland said at the time.

Zonnic does not contain tobacco, and because the pouches contain less than four milligrams of nicotine each and are not inhaled, they do not fall under existing federal or provincial tobacco or vaping legislation.

February 12, 2024

Quebec Urged to Crack Down on Flavored Vapes

Imperial Tobacco Canada is urging the government of Quebec to crack down on illegal flavored vaping products.

Three months after the law banning flavors in vaping products came into force, flavored e-cigarettes remain available at a large number of retail outlets that either infringe on the law or are using a variety of tactics to circumvent the law, according to Imperial Tobacco Canada, which is part of British American Tobacco.

“We are aware of the growing concern with the proliferation of products that circumvent the regulations, resulting in the creation of an illicit market,” said Imperial Vice-President of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Eric Gagnon in a statement.

“We recently identified over 200 sales outlets that sell non-compliant vaping products. These stores have not adjusted to the new regulations and continue to offer a wide range of flavored products, including those that exceed the maximum permitted quantity of 2 ml.”

According to Imperial, these stores now also sell flavor enhancers as a way to circumvent the new regulation. “Given that these enhancers are not intended to be vaped, they can pose serious risks to consumers who use them,” the company wrote in a press note. “It is also because of a similar illegal market that a wave of lung diseases spread between 2019 and 2020 in the U.S., claiming 68 lives.”

Imperial says that instead of meeting its objective of tackling vaping among young people, the government has created a thriving illicit market.

During a Jan. 21 appearance on the talk show Tout le monde en parle Health Minister Christian Dubé blamed tobacco companies for the situation.

Imperial Tobacco Canada said it strongly refutes the allegations. “As a responsible company that fully complies with the regulations in place, we denounce these abuses and reiterate our call for stronger enforcement of the law,” said. Gagnon. “We warned the minister’s office several months ago about the inevitable collateral damage that would result from such a regulation being implemented. Unfortunately, nothing was done, and the situation persists as a result.”

February 2, 2024

Health Groups Target Zonnic Pouch

Anti-smoking advocates in Canada are calling for the federal government to restrict sales of Zonnic, a product of Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITCAN), stating that it is aimed at youth. Health Canada recently approved the product, which is a nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT) oral pouch containing up to 4 mg of nicotine.

Despite the criticism, Imperial Tobacco Canada has defended its product. ITCAN “believes that Zonnic, a nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT) product authorized for sale by Health Canada, will help adult Canadian smokers quit,” the company wrote in a press release. “In addition to the youth access prevention measures ITCAN has already taken, ITCAN would support regulations that limit the sale [of the] NRT category to adults 18 years old and over.”

“I want to be absolutely clear: Zonnic is not a tobacco product,” said Eric Gagno, vice president of legal and external affairs at ITCAN. “It is licensed, regulated and advertised in the same way as any other smoking cessation product on the market. There should be no reason why ITCAN is singled out for adding another innovative choice to the market to help adult smokers quit.”

Zonnic is marketed as an NRT for adults, but it is available for sale at convenience stores and gas stations with no legal restrictions on who can purchase it, according to public health groups. The groups also stated that ITCAN’s social media posts feature young people and highlight Zonnic’s flavors, including Berry Frost and Tropic Breeze.

“It really is incomprehensible that this could have happened, but it has,” Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, told The Globe and Mail. “And now it has to be fixed.”

ITCAN’s press release states that “Zonnic is not promoted any differently than any other competing smoking cessation product in Canada. ITCAN’s marketing guidelines require that all material be targeted at adults. Everyone appearing in Zonnic advertising is 25 years old and older. In addition, the company has gone above and beyond the regulatory requirements in the terms of its market authorization by instructing retailers to require proof of age to purchase Zonnic at convenience stores. Zonnic is also sold behind the counter, which means the retailer must hand the product to the consumer. Furthermore, Zonnic will be available in pharmacies before the end of the month.”

The public health groups, including the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Lung Association, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation, are calling on the Canadian government to make nicotine pouches prescription only or suspend the sale until changes can be made to prevent sales to minors. The groups are also calling for a moratorium on approval for any other nicotine pouches unless they are prescription only.

“As for all of our products,” Gagnon said, “our position has been consistent and strong on this point. Nicotine products are for adult consumers only. We believe that if we truly want to reduce the health risks of tobacco products, we need to introduce products that will be appealing to adult smokers and have them available where people traditionally buy their cigarettes. Health groups should be on our side with this rather than putting up roadblocks.”

“We are aligned to Health Canada’s goal of reducing smoking rates to below 5 percent by 2035,” Gagnon said. “But to get there, we need to change the conversation to bring about impactful outcomes. Governments, health groups and industry must work together in a meaningful manner to bring effective solutions to the market. Our door is always open to have those discussions.”

November 16, 2023

Imperial Launches Vaping Campaign

Imperial Tobacco Canada has launched a campaign called Let’s Clear the Smoke with the goal of educating Canadian adults on the facts about vapor products and the role these products can play in reducing risks compared to cigarettes, according to BAT.

Let’s Clear the Smoke provides information about the latest in vapor product science and aims to allow Canadian adults to take a more informed view when considering their stance on vaping products and other less risky alternatives to smoking.

This campaign is driven by a combination of mass out of home media placements and digital ads to drive awareness and website traffic. The campaign lasts for 10 weeks and will be the first of a range of initiatives to drive the acceptance of tobacco harm reduction in Canada.

“There is a lack of understanding out there about vapor products, especially when it comes to the positive role they can play in tobacco harm reduction,” said Ralf Wittenberg, president and CEO of Imperial Tobacco Canada. “I think this misunderstanding is due to the fact that the vast majority of people don’t have access to accurate, credible and independent information.

“The purpose of this campaign is to educate Canadian adults on the facts about vapor products by providing access to credible, factual and independent information.”

March 18, 2022

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