Tuesday, March 28, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Preaching only abstinence doesn’t work with tobacco either: Crowley in Sun papers

October 18, 2017
in Columns, Domestic Policy Program, Health, In the Media, Latest News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A

Brian Lee CrowleyWriting in the Sun chain, MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley explains that the same lessons on teen sex apply to tobacco. Preaching only abstinence isn’t the way to promote better health.

By Brian Lee Crowley, Oct. 18, 2017

Shocking, I know, but the sorry truth is people are going to have sex. That includes teenagers. That’s why a government sex-education policy based solely on promoting abstinence would not only be laughable. It would rightly be condemned as irresponsible.

Alas this is exactly how governments in Canada want to protect us from the harms associated with tobacco. Abstinence is the only officially-approved message, despite the fact that technological advances are rapidly transforming the tobacco landscape.

Everyone knows smoking kills and is rightly discouraged as the single largest cause of preventable death in Canada. What many people fail to realize, however, is the health risks arise chiefly from the burning of tobacco and not from the consumption of nicotine.

The distinction between combustion (“smoking”) and tobacco use is not a trivial one. Many people derive comfort and pleasure from a hit of nicotine – one no riskier to your health than other completely legal stimulants like coffee, alcohol and (soon) marijuana. You’d think, therefore, that technological advances that allowed people to indulge their nicotine habit while largely eliminating the health risks associated with tobacco combustion would be welcomed by the same people for whom “harm-reduction” is a byword when dealing with various other vices.

The health risks arise chiefly from the burning of tobacco and not from the consumption of nicotine.

The reverse is the case. So great is the animus against tobacco that health authorities are actively trying to prevent, by law, Canadians gaining access to knowledge about products that could significantly reduce the harm of tobacco use.

Legislation passed by the Senate and now awaiting consideration by the Commons will limit the sellers of various forms of e-cigarettes (e.g., “vaping”) to making only yet-to-be-authorized government approved claims about the relative health benefits of their product compared to cigarettes. Worst still, tobacco products that eliminate combustion, such as Swedish snus (taken orally, with comparatively minor risks) and ones that release nicotine by heating tobacco but not burning it, will be forbidden to make similar claims even when the scientific evidence supports them. Violators risk not just hefty fines but jail time.

Contrary to what some argue, this is not just an issue of free speech for the tobacco companies. These draconian rules will apply to us all, and trample on the right of Canadians to hear information that might allow them to reduce significantly the health effects of their tobacco use if they find abstinence unrealistic.

Unrealistic “abstinence only” policies have been signal failures in reducing drug use or teenage sex. Why would we think it is a good idea where tobacco is concerned?

Far more sensibly the US Food and Drug Administration recently announced it will regulate tobacco products along a so-called “continuum of risk,” with government policy aiming to encourage people to move to lower-risk, non-combustible products wherever possible, such as snus, vaping, heated tobacco, etc. This policy wisely takes aim at the combustion of tobacco, which is at the heart of the health problems associated with tobacco use.

Canada’s approach remains that any tobacco product is beyond the pale and may not be promoted, even to the extent of informing Canadians about scientific evidence of how they could indulge their nicotine habit while significantly lowering their health risk. This policy makes an extreme and impractical goal (elimination of tobacco use) more important than the immediately achievable (real harm reduction). In Japan, one new non-combustion product alone has already captured over ten percent of the tobacco market from cigarettes and that share is forecast to double by year end. Snus has allowed Sweden to have the lowest rates of smoking among wealthy nations.

Unrealistic “abstinence only” policies have been signal failures in reducing drug use or teenage sex. Why would we think it is a good idea where tobacco is concerned? We have the opportunity essentially to eliminate the cigarette through technological change and informed consumer choice. Let’s take it.

Brian Lee Crowley is the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa. www.macdonaldlaurier.ca.

Tags: Brian Lee CrowleyHealthtobacco
Previous Post

How the government bungled the idea of “tax fairness”: Sean Speer in The Globe

Next Post

Move towards real harm reduction on tobacco use, Crowley tells National Post Radio

Related Posts

Election interference allegations: Christian Leuprecht on CBC News
Video

Election interference allegations: Christian Leuprecht on CBC News

March 27, 2023
The “Tesla of LNG Plants” is right here in Canada: Mike Priaro for Inside Policy
Columns

Indigenous communities are key to solving the global energy crisis: Chris Sankey in the National Post

March 27, 2023
A third way for drug addiction policy in Canada
Video

Video: A third way for drug addiction policy in Canada

March 24, 2023
Next Post
Nazareth talks temporary foreign workers on 1310 News

Move towards real harm reduction on tobacco use, Crowley tells National Post Radio

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.