Recently, a doctor in Canada who is a specialist in smoking related illnesses and the cessation of smoking wrote an open letter to Health Canada, asking to review its decision to limit the use of electronic cigarettes in Canada. The letter was published in the Montreal Gazette, but has been since taken down from the website. The physician in question, Dr. Ostiguy is based at the Montreal Chest Institute’s Smoking Cessation Clinic, and he has raised some very real concerns that the stance of Health Canada towards e-cigs is putting the health of smokers in danger as a result of restricting their options.
Despite the fact that the question of whether the use of electronic cigarettes is safe has not yet been fully answered, there is no doubt that smoking standard cigarettes is much more likely to damage the health of the user.
Even though you can legally purchase electronic cigarettes in Canada, Health Canada has recently prohibited the option to buy nicotine e-cigs, although, you can purchase e-cig cartridges that do not contain nicotine. Yet, over the border in the USA, smokers there enjoy the freedom of choice to use electronic cigarettes, something that can help to deal with nicotine addiction in a less harmful way.
Smokers living in Canada have been demanding a less toxic method of getting their daily nicotine fix, and these demands have been backed-up by experts dealing with addiction who have supported their need for a better range of e-cig products.
Due to the fact that there has been minimum concern about the use of nicotine free electronic cigarettes, it has been concluded that the real problem the Canadian government health authorities have is the addition of nicotine itself. Needless to say, for a very long time, it has been the influential pharmaceutical corporations that have had the monopoly on nicotine addiction therapies. Those smokers that have attempted to quit have access to a range of alternatives including nicotine gum and patches, however, Dr. Ostiguy has gone on record as saying that a lot of smokers will not be helped by these methods or therapies. He has also stated that smokers have the right to have access to the methods of quitting that will be beneficial to them, even if that method is an electronic cigarette.
At the end of the day, the smokers of Canada deserve to have the freedom of choice to choose their own method of trying to quit smoking. In the next few months the health authorities of many countries will be following the lead of the European Parliament in bringing out e-cig regulations. The big question is whether Health Canada will move to a more sensible position. The debate has been going on for too long and it’s clear tobacco companies are looking to buy out the market. We think it’s time the Canadian Government starts giving Canadians better healthier options by opening and properly regulating American electronic cigarette products.