Health Minister Terry Lake said the province is prepared to regulate electronic cigarettes so their sale is governed by the same provincial restrictions as tobacco smoking.
He was responding to a resolution adopted at lasy week’s Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, urging government action.
The growing trend of “vaping” with e-cigarettes instead of smoking has raised questions over product safety and concerns that years of anti-smoking gains could unravel if nicotine addiction rebounds.
Lake said he would prefer the federal government regulate the battery-powered vaporizers instead, but added the province will act within a year if Ottawa does not.
The goal, he said, would be to ensure e-cigarettes face most of the same bans or restrictions that apply on regular ones under B.C.’s Tobacco Control Act, particularly the ban on sale of tobacco to minors and the rules on advertising and display.
Lake wouldn’t yet say if the provincial ban on smoking in public buildings and workplaces, or within three metres of their doors and open windows, would also apply to vaping, but he noted cities can also pass their own bylaws to restrict use of e-cigarettes.
Provincial law also bans smoking on all school grounds and in vehicles carrying youth under 16.
The issue is so new that Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar told KTW he has not given the idea any thought and, therefore, could not comment.
Kamloops Coun. Marg Spina, however, wants e-cigarettes regulated like tobacco cigarettes.
“My biggest concern with e-cigarettes is youth,” she said.
“I know lots of young people use them when they’ve never smoked anything else.”
Fellow Coun. Arjun Singh said that, while he is interested in “making smoking a hard thing to do,” he realizes smokers and vapers need to be allowed somewhere — though he doesn’t think either should be permitted in offices.
The City of Vancouver is considering extending its smoking bylaw to e-cigarettes and adding the word “vapourizing” to its no-smoking signs.
Lake is expected to continue to press for a national solution this week at a conference of provincial health ministers and federal officials.
The B.C. Healthy Living Alliance argues the use of e-cigarettes to defy public smoking bans undermines a key deterrent to tobacco use, arguing the jury is out as to whether e-cigarettes are effective and safe smoking cessation aids, noting they are regulated as consumer products and have not undergone the approval process required for a medication.
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