FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
SHUT OUT: THE VOICES, THE EXPERIENCES, THE VIEW OF VAPERS ARE
EXCLUDED FROM NATIONAL SMOKING CESSATION CONFERENCE
Ottawa, Ontario – January 21, 2021 – For the second year in a row, Canada’s vapers are not represented at the major smoking cessation conference, the 13th Annual Ottawa Conference: State of the Art Clinical Approaches to Smoking Cessation.
“It is another demonstration of how little value the smoking cessation community puts on vaping,” said Maria Papaioannoy, spokesperson of Rights4Vapers, the country’s largest consumer vapers’ rights organization. “Thousands of Canadians have stopped smoking thanks to vaping. We hear their stories every day. Don’t we deserve a place at the table?”
Despite international recognition that vaping is less harmful than smoking, Canada has been slow to embrace vaping as part of its tobacco harm reduction strategy. Although Health Canada says on its website: “Vaping products and e-cigarettes deliver nicotine in a less harmful way than smoking cigarettes. These products may reduce health risks for smokers who can’t or don’t want to quit using nicotine.” (Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/smoking-tobacco/vaping/smokers.html)
In a 2018 independent expert e-cigarettes evidence review, Public Health England attributes vaping to “improved quit success rates over the last year and an accelerated drop in smoking rates across the country.” It states that vaping “could be contributing to at least 20,000 successful new quits per year and possibly many more.” (Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent-expert-e-cigarettes-evidence-review)
“What more evidence does the smoking cessation community need. All we want is to ensure Canadian smokers have a choice if they want to quit. All we want is for our voice to be heard,” said Ms. Papaioannoy.
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About Rights4Vapers.com Rights4Vapers.com is an organization of vaping advocates dedicated to the advancement of Canadian based research on vaping. Dr. Chris Lalonde is an academic advisor. Rights4Vapers is the voice of Canadian adult vapers, 98 percent of whom are former smokers.
Media inquiries: media@rights4vapers.com
