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January 22, 2020
During National Non-Smoking Week, the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health (CCMOH) wants to highlight that smoking continues to pose a significant risk to the health of Canadians with over 45,000 people dying from smoking-related causes each year. We recommend that Canadians needing support with nicotine addiction speak to a health care provider and seek out proven cessation therapies, such as medication or approved nicotine replacement therapies.
At this time, we also remain significantly concerned by the substantial rise of nicotine vaping among Canadian youth. In follow up to our previous position statements on this issue in July 2014, April 2019 and October 2019, we provide the following set of regulatory and policy recommendations that we believe are necessary to be taken by federal, provincial/territorial and municipal governments to address this rapidly emerging public health threat. We acknowledge that governments have already taken steps to implement some of these recommendations.
This statement pertains to nicotine vaping devices. The CCMOH released a related statement on cannabis vaping on January 6, 2020.
The overarching objectives of these recommendations are to protect young people from inducements to use vaping devices by regulating such devices as equivalent to tobacco products, and to encourage smokers who use vaping devices to use them solely to end or reduce their use of all nicotine-containing products.
These recommendations are made in the context of the emerging evidence of the short and long-term harms associated with the use of vaping products. We recognize that evidence is still emerging on the effectiveness of nicotine vaping products to help smokers decrease or stop their use of all nicotine-containing products. It is important that the regulatory and policy approaches for vaping products be reviewed as the evidence of health risks and benefits evolve. For example, if it becomes clear that vaping products are effective in helping people stop or reduce their use of all nicotine-containing products, then it may then be appropriate to approve, license and regulate vaping products in the same way as other tobacco cessation products.
Opportunities for both federal and provincial/territorial jurisdictions
Federal action would be preferred to create national consistency, but individual provinces/territories can consider individual action.
Opportunities for Federal Jurisdiction
Opportunities for Provincial/Territorial Jurisdictions
Opportunities for Municipal Jurisdictions:
Along with these policy and regulatory actions, we recommend that federal, provincial and territorial governments continue to work collaboratively to:
A number of other products for the delivery of nicotine have or are being developed (e.g. heated tobacco devices, oral nicotine products). We encourage federal and provincial/territorial governments to work together to develop a broad regulatory approach to all alternative methods of nicotine delivery (i.e. other than tobacco products) that offers strong youth protection while allowing appropriate access for adult smokers to products if they are proven effective in decreasing or stopping the use of all nicotine-containing products. A key component of any such regulatory approach should be the requirement for the manufacturer to provide enough evidence to satisfy the regulator that allowing any new product on the market is in the public interest before that product can be legally sold.
Dr. Theresa Tam
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada
Dr. Bonnie Henry
Provincial Health Officer, British Columbia
Chair, Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health
Dr. Brendan E. Hanley
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Yukon
Vice-Chair, Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald
I/Chief Medical Officer of Health, Newfoundland and Labrador
Dr. Heather Morrison
Chief Public Health Officer, Prince Edward Island
Dr. Robert Strang
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Nova Scotia
Dr. Jennifer Russell
Chief Medical Officer of Health, New Brunswick
Dr. Horacio Arruda
Director of Public Health and Assistant Deputy Minister
Ministry of Health and Social Services, Québec
Dr. David Williams
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ontario
Dr. Brent Roussin
Chief Provincial Public Health Officer, Manitoba
Dr. Saqib Shahab
Chief Medical Health Officer, Saskatchewan
Dr. Deena Hinshaw
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Alberta
Dr. Michael Patterson
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Nunavut
Dr. Kami Kandola
Chief Public Health Officer, Northwest Territories
Dr. Evan Adams
Chief Medical Officer, First Nations Health Authority, British Columbia
Dr. Tom Wong
Chief Medical Officer, Public Health, Indigenous Services Canada
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