A pro-vaping group even rented a room next to the 12th annual Ottawa Conference on state-of-the-art clinical approaches to smoking cessation, but that rental was later rescinded.
The politics of e-cigarettes infiltrated Ottawa’s annual conference on smoking cessation this week with a group claiming to represent the rights of vapers complaining that they were being “shut out” of the conference and that it was unfairly targeting vaping.
The pro-vaping group, Rights4Vapers, even rented a room at the Shaw Centre next to the 12th annual Ottawa Conference on state-of-the-art clinical approaches to smoking cessation, saying they planned to hold a conference within the larger conference. That rental was later rescinded.
Spokesperson Sherwin Edwards, a vaping business owner and advocate from Mirabel, Que., and a former candidate for Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada, said the group opposed regulations, including bans on flavoured e-cigarettes and nicotine levels. The group’s aim is to “protect the rights of adult vapers, whose access is under siege,” he said.
At the opening of the conference Friday, co-chair Dr. Andrew Pipe of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, the leading Canadian expert on smoking cessation, told attendees that a vaping rights group had suggested it was associated with the conference. He asked people to treat members of the group with “appropriate respect,” but added “their representation has been completely erroneous.”
Elizabeth Payne – Ottawa Sun – January 17, 2019.
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