The synthetic butterscotch vapour wafting over the newspaper next to you while you enjoy your morning coffee may be a short-lived experience if Ottawa health advocates have their way.
E-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that mimic the experience of smoking traditional tobacco products and are available with or without nicotine. They are becoming increasingly popular devices that have yet to see enforced regulation in Ontario.
But in Centretown and elsewhere in Ottawa, there is rising concern among health advocates that the appeal to local youth of “vaping” may once again normalize a smoking culture that the advocates have worked diligently to discourage.
Breathing Easier, a guide for asthma and lung-disease patients, which includes information on the potential health risks associated with e-cigarettes, will be made available electronically, and in print via community health advocates such as Somerset West Community Health Centre starting Nov. 19.
“We have worked tirelessly over the past 50 years to reduce smoking rates and have seen great success and want this to continue. We do not want e-cigarette use to make smoking appear as a normal, socially acceptable activity, especially for our youth,” said Bobbe Wood, president of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, in an October press release on the issue of e-cigarettes in Canada.
One in five Ottawa high school students have experimented with an e-cigarette at least once in their life, according to the 2014 Ottawa student drug use and health report.
“There are also studies coming out of America that show non-smoking children who use e-cigarettes are nearly twice as likely to intend to start smoking tobacco cigarettes,” stated Debbie McCulloch, from the health promotion and disease prevention branch of Ottawa Public Health.
Safety concerns are rising given the ambiguous status of these unregulated products. It is illegal in Canada to manufacture, sell, or import e-cigarettes containing nicotine, but a lack of enforcement has seen products containing the harmful substance remain readily available.
“E-cigarette liquids are not labelled, and there are no manufacturing standards. We are particularly concerned that there is no way to know whether nicotine levels are high enough to trigger nicotine addiction in users, or harm consumers of second-hand vapour,” says Carmela Graziani, volunteer vice-president for the Ottawa Council on Smoking .
Inevitably, patterns are arising between historic tobacco cigarette marketing campaigns, and today’s e-cigarette advertising. There is a re-emergence of lifestyle imaging; young celebrities cheerfully “vaping” mimic those “smoking” a generation ago.
This concerns health advocates, who say these marketing strategies “undermine the hard fought change in social norms related to tobacco use, thus undermining progress in tobacco control.”
Defenders of e-cigarettes are arguing that the simulated smoking experience can be hugely helpful for those trying to rid themselves of their tobacco addiction.
“As a harm reduction approach, some believe that e-cigarettes are a safer alternative to traditional tobacco cigarettes,” the Heart and Stroke Foundation acknowledges in its October press release. “Users satisfy their craving and addiction for nicotine without the dangerous effects of tobacco.”
At this time, the long-term effects of e-cigarette nicotine addiction are unknown, and conversely, the potential cessation benefits of the product are unsubstantiated and dubious in the opinion of Health Canada.