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(Updated) The Ontario government has announced that they will be regulating the sale and use of electronic cigarettes.
They will get the same legal status as regular tobacco cigarettes, meaning a total ban on sales to youth, and use in restaurants and public buildings will be prohibited. Associate minister of health and long-term care Dibika Damerla says the legislation introduced today will ban the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 19 years of age.
It will also end any display and promotion of them in places were they’re sold and prohibit e-cigarettes wherever smoking is already banned. Demerla says the proposed law is expected to ban flavoured tobacco products as well, which are popular amongst youth.
She says these rules are very important for young people who are tempted to start smoking. “I was on the GO train 6 months ago and I saw a young person light up, and I thought it was a cigarette.”
“It was actually… an electronic cigarette. When was the last time we saw someone smoking in public places? There is that idea that we fought so hard for tobacco control and we want to make sure that we don’t lose that.”
Michael Perley, the director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco says there’s currently no regulation on e-cigarettes and hopes this new legislation passes quickly. “It’s a reasonable sort of middle ground regulation between an outright ban and the wild west we have right now where everyone is selling them, everyone is using them wherever they want, and there’s no regulation on a product that we don’t know much about.”
The proposed new legislation could see lounges like the Vapour Bar in Dundas go up in smoke. And that has manager Matt Ramage saying “that would be a kick to one of the only tools we have against tobacco right now.”
Ramage agrees with most of the new regulations but says some of it goes too far. He says prohibiting e-cigarettes wherever smoking tobacco is banned is not going to help people quit smoking.
“It would be tougher for people to switch to vapour if they didn’t know what it was like, so having a flavour bar is important.”
Corry Lofchick smoked a pack a day for almost 40 years. He says e-cigarettes helped him butt out.
“I haven’t touched a cigarette, I don’t want one, I love the smell, I will never have another cigarette ever again.”
Ninh Tran, associate medical officer of health for Hamilton says there are still some details to be worked out in the legislation, but they support it and will be looking at ways to integrate it with current smoking bylaws. “Right now our own bylaw for outdoors is more comprehensive in terms of restricting smoking not only in outdoor parks or recreation facilities.”
Even though e-cigarettes don’t produce second-hand smoke, the government says they send the wrong message to teens and it could prompt them to take up smoking.
The changes will be phased in over two years. The ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to minors comes into effect in 2016; the indoor ban, a year later.
Additional video: Morning Live coverage of the announcement:
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