Toronto, ON, Feb. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- An op-ed published by the Toronto Star, “Vaping is a widespread issue. Stop making convenience stores a convenient scapegoat”, leads readers to believe that the rise in youth vaping is of no fault of the convenience store association. Cherry picked statistics and the omission of facts make convenience stores look like victims to senseless legislation.
The Canadian Vaping Association (CVA) applauds legislation that removes flavours and high nicotine strength liquids from points of sale that are not age restricted. Big tobacco vape brands leveraged their relationships with convenience stores to fuel their aggressive national marketing campaigns which promote high nicotine products in environments with youth exposure. This has led to availability of high nicotine products and related advertisements in an estimated 20,000 retail locations across Canada, which never existed prior to 2018. This is a massive expansion in access from the 1,200 adult access only vape shops which had opened over the prior decade.
Youth experimentation with vaping products grew substantially in tandem with this increased access in 2018. This increased access in non-age restricted environments, and the introduction of tobacco owned vape brands, such as Juul and Vype are the only factors which changed at the time of the rise of youth vaping rates. These tobacco owned vaping products have extremely high nicotine content, up to 59 mg/ml, compared to age restricted specialty vape shops who on average sell e-liquids containing between 3 to 9 mg/ml of nicotine.
Additionally, specialty vape stores have personnel knowledgeable within the field which provide education to transition adult smokers to vaping, typically applying an incremental method. In these environments, adult smokers are provided with a liquid that has equivalent nicotine to their typical intake levels based on the amount they smoke. From here it is suggested that they then gradually decrease the nicotine concentration to as low as 0mg/ml thus making it easier to eventually quit vaping as well. Convenience stores don’t offer the low strengths that are available to consumers in specialty vape shops, typically carrying only the tobacco brand vape products with nicotine strengths of 17.5 mg/ml and above. This makes it very difficult for adult smokers who transition to vape products sold through these access points to eliminate nicotine completely, instead ensuring that consumers become addicted to these high nicotine vape products.
The combination of non-age restricted access points, aggressive national brand marketing campaigns, and big tobacco vape brands with extremely high nicotine contents has led to the steep rise in youth use. This is especially apparent when examining youth vaping rates in the UK. The European union was quick to introduce a nicotine limit of 20mg/ml. This cap on nicotine hindered the entrance of tobacco owned brands and prevented youth from vaping for “a heady” or nicotine buzz. Although the UK sells a wide range of vape brands in all possible flavours, and currently has over 3.6 million adult vapers, there has been virtually no youth uptake seen in this country.
The author of the op-ed cites that convenience stores have a 96 percent pass rate with mystery shopper programs while vape shops have an 80 percent fail rate. This is disingenuous to readers. The 96 percent pass rate cited in relation to convenience stores relates only to age verification prior to the sale of vaping products. The 80 percent fail rate that is being referred to in relation to specialty vape shops to is in no way related to underaged sales. In fact, specialty vape shops ID people as soon as they walk through the door, rather than at point of sale. The fail rate cited for vape shops is actually tied to regulatory compliance, largely surrounding the labelling standards introduced in 2018. The vast majority of the infractions were non-compliant labels, which the industry has worked tirelessly to rectify. Additionally, the industry continues to work with Tobacco Enforcement Officers (TEOs) who conduct these inspections to drive compliance and ensure standardization of the inspection process.
Industry members have also been working tirelessly with Health Canada towards the development of additional regulations that will both limit youth exposure and access to vaping products. Specifically, in an effort to protect youth and reduce youth uptake, the vape shop owners industry wide have called for various additional measures including:
- National ban on brand advertising
- Dual ID verification for on-line sales
- Restricting vape product sales to adult only environments
- Reducing maximum nicotine concentrations to 20 mg/ml
The CVA and its membership fully support the Ontario government’s decision to limit the sale of these adult products within non-age restricted environments, including convenience stores. It was big tobacco companies supported by the convenience store sales channel, that addicted generations to combustible tobacco products. It is now these same companies and sales channels who have exposed youth to aggressive vape product marketing and high nicotine vape products. When big tobacco entered the vape market in 2018 through their convenience store partners, the country witnessed the dramatic increase in youth uptake and yet the convenience stores now make a claim to be the scapegoat. Canadian’s are not so naïve.