Dave Scharf, Centretown News
The city is proposing expanding the city’s bylaws to regulate the use of electronic cigarettes.Ottawa Public Health is reaching out to residents and stakeholders for feedback on limiting the use of e-cigarettes and non-tobacco combustible substances in public places in hopes of protecting others from second-hand smoke.
Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices that vaporize their liquid contents, which are then inhaled by the user.
According to the Society for the Study of Addiction, electronic cigarette vapour exposes those in the same room to the same contaminants produced from cigarette smoke, such as nicotine and hydrocarbons.
Water pipes, also commonly known as hookahs or shishas, are pipes used to smoke tobacco and herbal products through a flexible hose that draws smoke through a water filled bowl.
The smoke produced by water pipes contains many of the same harmful and carcinogenic components as cigarette smoke.
In 2005, the World Health organization issued an Advisory Note of Water Pipe Tobacco Smoking which states: “water pipe smokers and second-hand smokers (are) at risk for the same kinds of disease as are caused by cigarette smoking, including cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, and adverse effects during pregnancy.”
The WHO also recommends that “water pipes should be prohibited in public places consistent with bans on cigarette and other forms of tobacco smoking,” in order to limit the dangers of second-hand smoke.
Let’s Clear the Air 2.0, a plan created by the OPH, launched last November, which proposed the potential expansion of the city’s bylaws to regulate the use of electronic cigarettes and smoking of non-tobacco combustible substances, such as water pipes, in public and work places.
“We don’t have anything formulated yet,” says Lorette Dupuis, OPH spokesperson. “We’re looking to see what the public has to say.”
In 2012, the City of Ottawa prohibited the smoking of water pipes and non-tobacco products on municipal property.
Yet these amendments did not address the use of herbal water-pipe products in public places, which also emit second-hand smoke.
In 2015, the Making Healthier Choices Act, also known as Bill 45, proposed amendments to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.
It also introduced the Electronic Cigarettes Act to address the potential dangers of e-cigarettes. Bill 45 has age-based restrictions on the supply and sale of electronic cigarettes, and also authorizes provincial tobacco enforcement officers to seize tobacco product from vapour lounges to test them for tobacco. Bill 45 is still awaiting proclamation by the Ontario government.
The use of water pipes has become increasingly popular due to the misconception that it is a healthy alternative to smoking cigarettes. According to the Canadian Tobacco Monitoring Survey, the use of water pipes has significantly increased over the years, tripling from three per cent in 2006 to 10 per cent in 2012 among the Ontario population aged 18 and up.
“There is robust evidence of the harmful health effects of herbal water-pipe use and second-hand smoke exposure to workers and the general public,” states Dr. Isra Levy in a letter to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, Eric Hoskins.
According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, harmful health effects of water pipe and second-hand smoke exposures include, but are not limited to, lung, bladder and oral cancers, decreased fertility, heart disease and exposure to carbon monoxide and other toxic agents.
In the letter, Levy says that banning the use of water pipes and other combustible substances in public places, “will improve health outcomes by protecting [hospitality industry] workers and non-smokers from second-hand smoke exposure.”
Anyone with an opinion on updating Ottawa’s smoke-free bylaws can fill out the city’s survey online www.ottawa.ca/tobacco, or email healthsante@ottawa.ca or call the OPH Information Line at 613-580-6744.