Category Archives: policy
Its not uncommon to have difficulty understanding why other people don’t hold the same positions you do about things. I will never quite comprehend the mindset of Stephen Harper or for that matter the conservative mindset. I guess we are who we are. But when it comes to health and the public good, I have […]
In response to my request for stories out there of experiences dealing with Health Canada I received one from Erin Morales (thank you Erin). Erin is a former 2 pack a day smoker who after failing multiple attempts at all the authorized methods of quitting (Nicorette, patch, Champix) was able to find switching the only […]
Thanks to Health Canada, the e-cigarette climate in this country is an inhospitable one to say the least. There is no problem vaping if you can get them but availability is hit and miss. Though the view in the community has been that Health Canada does not understand the nature of the product and thus […]
You know the old canard – if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck and looks like a duck its probably a duck? Well, what we have here in Canada is the opposite. Though Health Canada acts as though there is a ban, suggests there is a ban, and though just about everybody […]
I’ll get back to the Bad Apple post but this is worth publicizing (noticed it on Michael Siegel’s Rest of the Story). The citation is Adkison SE, et al. Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems: International Tobacco Control Four-Country Survey. Am J Prev Med. March, 2013 (article here). If you go to the article and take a […]
Two items this week once again make me think twice about self-identifying as Canadian. I suppose I can take solace in the fact that one’s country and one’s identity is something quite different from what occurs in the corridors of power, or whenever prohibitionism rears its mishapen head. The first item, brought to my attention […]
I ran across a fascinating resource (Worldmapper.org) which maps various health outcomes onto regions of the world and thus produces a global picture which when compared against the typical map indicates imbalances or concentrations depending on your outlook. This first map is one of prostate cancer deaths; that is, a cancer unrelated to smoking history. […]
As a followup to Carl’s post on the menthol issue and specifically in regards to his paragraph on how someone in harm reduction could be torn between supporting any drop in quality of cigarettes (since that would drive people to lower harm alternatives) and the wish to maintain individual liberty, I would like to add […]
Thanks to Bill Godshall, we can give you the links to some of the statements made at the Scientific Standards for Studies on Reduced Risk Tobacco Products meeting to advise the FDA on the minimum standards for scientific studies to allow the marketing of modified risk tobacco products, and for post-market studies of marketed products. […]