Living Smoke Free

When Pop-Tarts were first introduced in the mid-1960s, they came in four flavours; today you will find 29. Of course, in those days, most people thought there were only two genders. Now Facebook allows us to choose from 50.

Melodie Tilson: Time to embrace — and regulate — e-cigarettes

Are electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) the clear answer to smokers'prayers or perhaps a major threat to progress in reducing smoking rates? Too much remains unknown to provide a definitive answer to this question, but one thing is certain: how these products are regulated will in large part determine whether they're a net benefit or perhaps a net harm to public health.
At present, Health Canada has deemed that e-cigarettes with nicotine and e-cigarettes that make a health claim —such as for example they can allow you to quit smoking — fall beneath the Food and Drugs Act. As such, they can not legally be imported, marketed or sold in Canada until they've undergone rigorous testing for safety, quality and efficacy and received approval as a drug/device. On paper, Canada includes a strict regulatory regime for e-cigarettes providing the gold standard in consumer protection, but the fact of the marketplace tells a very different story. The Wild West that is the present e-cigarette market in Canada serves neither to advertise quitting among current smokers nor to avoid youth from starting.
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You can find healthier things to eat for breakfast than Pop-Tarts, and 50 genders may be a bit of a stretch. In many respects, these two facts is visible as signs of considerable progress: People will have a greater ability to find the specific products that best suit their lifestyle; and it's much more likely today, than it had been 40 years ago, that the lifestyle they need to pursue will be accepted by their peers.
But while entrepreneurs and an increasingly tolerant society have expanded the options offered to each and each of us, government is now a lot more controlling — exerting influence over some of the very minute information on our day-to-day lives.
In the past, potentially life-saving new technologies, such as for example soap and refrigerators, weren't put through lengthy approval processes before people could start benefiting from them. Today, it will take Health Canada on average couple of years to approve new medications. Just how many people have died, or experienced a serious decrease the their standard of living, because their medication was held up in a maze of government bureaucracy, will never be known.
Clearly, we wish effective oversight of new pharmaceutical products. Nevertheless the tendency nowadays is for governments to ban new services first and sort out the important points later, when the main benefit of doubt should be provided with to businesses and consumers to decide what products they wish to buy and sell. Electronic cigarettes supply a good case study in governments imposing overbearing regulations — the expense which clearly outweigh the benefits.
E-cigarettes were invented by way of a Chinese pharmacist in 2003 and hit the industry the following year. The technology has improved immensely and the devices have become in popularity. Euromonitor International estimates e-cigarette sales will reach $7-billion globally by the conclusion of the year. Other analysts expect the industry to be worth $10-billion by 2017.