The Canadian province of British Columbia is undertaking bold new legislation in response to its analysis of e-cigarette health risks.

According to TheConversation.com, the regulatory plan set to be put in motion within the next three months includes reducing the nicotine levels in available vaping pods and making flavored pods less accessible to underage youth. It also includes regulations that will ensure vaping products are packaged in a uniform manner and are clearly marked with warnings about e-cigarette health risks.

Finally, the government plans to add a nearly 20 percent tax on supplies to support the non-combustible smoking habit.

Ideology Behind the Actions

There are good reasons behind the development of this plan, chief of which is the ever-present evidence of e-cigarette health risks identified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC has named a  vaping health crisis of epidemic proportions known as E-Cigarette or Vaping product use Associated Lung Injury (EVALI). EVALI has been felt across the U.S. and Canada and while inroads have been made, the life-threatening ailment has largely remained mysterious to date.

The vast majority of EVALI victims have been young adults in the 18-24 age range. This is thought to be because of a massive increase in youth vaping during the seven-year period between 2011 and 2018, as indicated by the report from TheConversation.com. In the U.S. alone during this time, e-cigarette use leaped from 1.5  to 20.8 percent among high school students. The change has been correlated with deliberate marketing techniques employed by the major manufacturers and distributors of vaping products.

One marketing strategy involved sending representatives to schools to present vaping products as a completely safe alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes. These representatives encouraged young people to tell their friends about e-cigarettes’ “safety”. Secondly, vaping pods were made available in a multitude of candy-like flavors. According to the report, flavors for regular cigarettes were outlawed in 2009 with the creation of an amendment to the Tobacco Act.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, the crackdown on pod flavorings will go into effect in Spring 2020 and include a requirement that these products only be sold in e-cigarette stores with strict age requirements, a regulation that is unpopular with convenience store retailers. The Convenience Industry Council of Canada, speaking on behalf of 2,500 province convenience stores, claims that the reduction in accessibility makes it more difficult for adults trying to transition from traditional cigarettes to a safer source of nicotine.

The tax increase, which is expected to be the first of the four steps to be implemented, will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. The proposed tax is also controversial but is supported by data from other “bad habit” taxes that have shown decreased use once put into effect. According to the report, a Philadelphia sugar tax on sweetened soda precipitated a near 30% drop in sales between 2016 and 2018.

Learn More

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.