Ian Irvine is a professor of Economics at Concordia University.The best and the brightest were arrayed in London last week for the thirteenth annual E-Cigarette Summit. I had the pleasure of listening and learning in the hallowed halls of the Royal College of Physicians. The findings and recommendations of the scholars were virtually unanimous: e-cigs are a reliable and low-risk off-ramp for smokers wanting to quit; kids should be deterred from accessing them; governments should set modest tax rates and get clear messaging out to the public on relative risk..OLDCORN: Pharmacy rules hurt New Brunswick smokers trying to quit.For once, I was proud to be an academic. No prevaricating, no overstatement of claims, just a measured dose of reality. The conference is funded solely by attendance fees. It has no support from industry.I am equally fortunate not to have been present at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Conference of Parties, Eleven (COP11), a couple of weeks earlier in Geneva. This is a biennial event that has elements of a Shakespearian tragedy. You see, the WHO tobacco control group is essentially a prohibitionist organization and funded by one of the world’s leading philanthropists. The WHO refuses to recognize the findings of uncountable gold-standard research groups — that e-cigs contain about 5% of the toxins of combustibles. Our knowledge remains incomplete, but we know their life-shortening effects will be a fraction of combustibles, even if switchers stay with the e-cigs indefinitely..Nicotine is a balm for many — those with anxiety disorders, those who suffer from stress, the incarcerated, and the less successful economic groups.So, what gives here? We have the top scholars and the top WHO brass at loggerheads on nicotine. It is no wonder that the average person is bamboozled by conflicting health messages. And it is not just the WHO employees in Geneva who are at fault. Doctors across the globe display a surprising degree of ignorance when it comes to links between cigarettes and cancer. Nicotine is not a carcinogen; the tar and myriad toxins created upon combustion form a breeding ground for carcinogens. E-cigarettes supply nicotine through vaporization, not combustion. Nicotine causes dependence, smoke may ultimately kill..Vaping, nicotine pouches easier on gums than smoking cigarettes .Back to Shakespeare. One of America’s finest philanthropists is Michael Bloomberg. He has donated many billions to charity, in the form of education, health, and the arts, and, alas, the WHO tobacco control group. He also contributes hundreds of millions to anti-nicotine organizations, whose ambition is now to stamp out nicotine, not just smoking. .When interest groups are made redundant by the wonders of technological change, they must refocus their aim on an imagined evil “in the neighborhood” if they are to survive as interest groups. Many of the traditional anti-smoking organizations in Canada have switched their attacks from being solely upon Big Tobacco to include all commercial nicotine supply. They have replaced their former zero-smoking objective with a zero-nicotine target and are thus intent upon driving legal business into the ground. They appear to believe that Canada’s 2 million vapers, and growing, can be convinced they should not vape. .OLDCORN: Europe, Canada, Ireland don't follow France, banning nicotine pouches hurts smokers.These prohibitionist organizations are posing as our saviors while, in fact, they cloud the landscape with misinformation. And that is the danger, because more people will die prematurely as a result. The percentage of the population that believes vaping is very much less dangerous than smoking (the truth) is in the region of 10% in Canada. If we really want smokers to quit, let’s give them the wherewithal to do so — the truth. Have our politicians the guts to take this job on? Ian Irvine is a professor of Economics at Concordia University, Montreal. He has acted as a consultant to the federal government on tobacco and alcohol policy and also worked in the private sector. Some of his recent research has been funded by the Global Action to End Smoking Foundation. He has accepted conference costs from commercial nicotine suppliers.
