Ian Irvine is a professor of Economics at Concordia University, Montreal.Nicotine policy in Canada needs an injection of reality. Canada has an established anti-smoking culture, and the arrival of new nicotine-delivery technologies has made the job of reducing smoking further much easier. The very good news today is that Canada’s smoking rate is at its lowest level in a century. Latest figures put it at about 11%. Daily smoking among teens is 1%, an unimaginably low level a decade or so ago. These facts augur well for the future. Premature smoking-related deaths in Canada amount to some 40,000 per year, a legacy of the high smoking rates in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Such deaths will decline long into the future simply because we have smoked less in the past twenty years, much less.Health Canada deserves much of the credit. For several decades, it has fostered a culture that has denormalized smoking through aggressive measures designed to limit its attractiveness. But Health Canada has run out of steam and is failing to push a positive “get out of jail” (a.k.a. get out of smoke) agenda in the current era. And it is not the only branch of government that is underperforming.The report issued by Health Canada in January on the Canada Tobacco Strategy titled “Delivering Results: Advancing Canada’s Tobacco Strategy,” sad to say, is pastel, evasive, misinformative, and carries a homeopathic measure of inventiveness.It tells us that the illegal market for tobacco may be as low as 10%. This is not credible — researchers in the area use a 30% number. Ten percent is a decoy.The report denies us access to research on harm reduction and reduced-harm products from the premier independent research teams in the world. Ghosting the uncomfortable is not what our Administrative Branch should be doing. The blogger Alar Gor has noted that “nicotine exceptionalism” is a worldwide phenomenon — health authorities buy into harm reduction to varying degrees where fentanyl and “hard” drugs are in play, but not where nicotine is concerned..Virtually all of Canada’s illegal cigarettes are produced on First Nations land by criminal gangs. This may be why the report low-balls the scale of the illegal market. The saga is buried in a cited reference from a footnote. None of this is addressed in the text. Instead, the report recognizes the sacred role of tobacco among indigenous peoples and attributes their high tobacco dependence to a legacy of colonial rule. I have no doubt that the settler treatment of indigenous peoples has wrought depression in its wake. Is that a reason to ignore the uncomfortable truth that about 5 billion sticks are produced on-reserve each year?It then tells us that the future is looking very rosy: a consultant’s modelling exercise indicates that Health Canada’s “strategy” will heroically lead Canada to a 5% smoking rate a decade from now. Absent the strategy, the rate would have been 8%. How it will achieve this is unclear, and the time horizon is unnecessarily pessimistic — several jurisdictions in Northern Europe, together with New Zealand/Aotearoa, will hit the magic 5% smoking target (a.k.a. “zero”) in the next couple of years. These jurisdictions don’t warrant a mention. They would put Ottawa to shame. Parochialism and self-congratulation carry the day.We can do better.To begin with, it is essential to be honest and inform taxpayers and smokers that illegal cigarettes are a significant problem. Tax authorities have inadvertently provided incentives for this market to grow and prosper. Additionally, the punitive tax treatment of vapes and other new-generation products is creating a second illegal market. It is also important to recognize that reduced-harm products are effective quit devices and carry much lower risk.Long-term smokers need information — blunt and direct. Posting, truthfully, on Health Canada’s website that new-generation products carry less risk will not influence middle-aged and older folks who have been smoking for decades. Health Canada’s website, which our bureaucrats should heed, is not in your average smoker’s newsfeed. This web information is no more than a hand-washing exercise if it is not accompanied by targeting smokers more directly with the truth..In corner stores, we could announce on those blank power walls that “vapes are 20 times less risky than cigarettes, and they are sold here.” Or “Oral nicotine pouches are one hundred times less risky than cigarettes, and they are sold here.” Of course, pouches are not sold in corner stores. In response to Imperial Tobacco’s promoting its Zonnic pouches to young adults as a recreational drug, Minister Holland decided to punish the citizenry by not permitting pouches to be sold in corner stores. He decided, at the same time, that it was OK to sell the product that is one hundred times more toxic. We live with his genius and legacy.Other informational policies are available: we could set a higher age of access to cigarettes than for the new generation products. Or print on cigarette packs that vapes are the best way to quit. Unequivocal messaging from Health Canada to smokers is vital; smokers are drowning in a sea of confusion and false claims on social media.Tax policy that makes reduced-harm products as expensive as illegal cigarettes must be questioned.Health Canada is not alone in floundering. Most of Canada’s health lobby groups and provincial health ministries are adamantly against any form of nicotine consumption, though there are some notable exceptions.A zero smoking rate is attainable before the year 2035. But it will require Ottawa to rise from its slumber — where reality is a sleepmate — and pursue assertive measures that will support quitting both legal and illegal combustible tobacco.Failing to promote new-generation products into our active arsenal delays Z-day, and denialism promotes a future where illegal products become ever more dominant.Disclosure: Ian Irvine is a professor of Economics at Concordia University, Montreal. He has worked as a consultant for the federal government in tobacco and alcohol policy, and also in the private sector. Some of his recent research has been supported by a grant from the Global Action to End Smoking Foundation, and he has accepted conference expenses from nicotine producers.
