The upsurge in the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) in the past decade is a critical issue for tobacco control, characterized by rapidly changing ENDS technologies, shifting usage patterns and contradictory evidence on the added value of vaping products.
Policy development in this realm is often based on risk assessments lacking replication or clear consensus on the benefits and harms of ENDS.
Further, without homegrown evidence, Canada’s approach has been highly reliant on the experience of and evidence in other countries, despite critical differences in regulatory landscapes and time trends in uptake across age groups.
This second offering in a two-part series in Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada: Research, Policy and Practice (the HPCDP Journal) on tobacco and vaping prevention and control presents Canadian data that directly address this knowledge gap. Our call for papers asked for new Canadian evidence on policy implementation challenges, the determinants of ENDS use including its social distribution, and the associations between ENDS use, smoking cessation and health outcomes. The five papers in this special issue address key evidence gaps that have challenged the development of relevant policy and programs targeting ENDS use in Canada.
In an innovative online scan of vaping product retailers, D’Mello et al. demonstrate the mind-boggling diversity of the online e-cigarette market in Canada in terms of nicotine concentration, availability of higher-concentration salt-base nicotine products, and flavours. The authors decry this diversity and call for reducing the number of e-liquid flavours available on the market and restricting nicotine concentrations to less than 20 mg/mL. Their research reveals disturbingly high levels of noncompliance with federal regulations that prohibit the marketing of candy-flavoured e-liquids.
Cynthia Callard et al. – 2022-01-19.
Want More Investigative Content?
