Quebec Flavor Vape Ban Possible If New Law Passes

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by Christina Matthews

Updated: January 31, 2023

quebeck flavor vape ban

The Quebec provincial government may soon pass a law banning the sale and consumption of flavored vape products. The move comes on the heels of a new report showing an increase in the number of young people vaping in the province.

New rules would prohibit liquid with higher than 20mg/ml.

The public health minister, Christian Dubé blamed flavored nicotine vaping products for this increase. Dubé not only blamed flavored vaping products for the rise in vaping rates but also cautioned that the devices could lead to a new generation getting addicted to nicotine.

There are over 15,000 different flavors of vaping products currently available in Quebec. The proposed ban would abolish all of them except for tobacco-flavored products.

What’s Behind the Ban?

The provincial government in Quebec has, in recent months, been inundated with calls and emails from concerned parents, educators, and school principals about teen vaping. Like their counterparts in the US, lawmakers in Quebec have chosen to take the most extreme route by killing off an entire industry to placate worried parents and teachers.

The provincial government is also working off a report released by the province’s health authority showing a marked increase in vaping by young people. This increase came even though Quebec already has a stringent set of laws in place aimed at protecting young people from vaping.

  • HOWEVER, there is a clear fact that stopping selling flavored vapes made no change is overall sales. Juul Example confirms!

The Quebec government adopted the Tobacco Control Act in 2015, which:

  1. Ended online sales of vaping products
  2. Prohibited anyone under the age of 18 from even entering a specialty vape shop
  3. Banned e-cigarette advertising outside of specialty vape shops

Despite these regulations, more people vape in Quebec (17%) than anywhere else in Canada (15%), according to a 2017 Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs survey. The proposed ban is also part of a larger 5-year plan to decrease the number of smokers in the province.

This past summer, the government announced that it would try to bring down the number of smokers to only 10 percent of the population.

The False Promises of Flavor Ban

The provincial government in Quebec is subscribing to the same wishful thinking on flavor bans as other lawmakers. They have only taken the perspective of the potential for flavored vaping products to hook teenagers to nicotine, without considering how flavored vaping products often help adult smokers quit their habit.

Minister Dubé is using the false flag of preventing teenage nicotine addiction as a way to stamp out the harm reduction tools many adult smokers depend on. But while the minister is scoring points with parents and public health officials, the Canadian Vaping Association blasted the minister by saying in a statement the new ban

“will have the unintended consequence of pushing ex-smokers back to smoking”.

Will the Ban Happen?

The letter from the Canadian Vaping Association written by regional director John Xydous cited the disastrous Nova Scotia flavor ban, which only served to push smokers back to cigarettes after they could no longer access the flavors they enjoy vaping. The Nova Scotia ban is currently being challenged in court, which could see the 8-month-old ban lifted.

The advisory panel that is calling for a flavor ban has put forth many recommendations for the government to adopt such as:

  • Requiring vape shops to apply for a special permit to sell vaping products
  • Banning vape shops from opening in the vicinity of a school
  • Implementing a tax on flavored nicotine products

But the government has made clear that it would only enact the outright ban of flavored products and limit nicotine concentrations. When, and if, the government will follow through with the legislation in the new year remains to be seen, as it is currently struggling with the pandemic and has its focus on other matters.

More submissions can make an impact on this. Contact your MNA to make them know that vaping is for adults! And adults deserve to have choices besides tobacco!

Published: January 20, 2021Updated: January 31, 2023
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Christina Matthews

I love the written word, and in my career as a journalist, I strive to provide the facts about everything I write about. There are too many false and alarmist stories out there about life and vaping mainly. My mission is to make e-cigarettes less scary to people with informative articles and extensive research on not only the possible evils of cigarettes and Big Tobacco, but the objective side of e-cigs.