Canada's Minister for Health wants to ban nicotine pouches but how easy will it be to shut down the booming black market? In Part 2 of our Canada special, Maria Pappaioannoy talks to Joanna Junak about the difficulties THR advocates are facing in Canada, and why Rights for Vapers now advocates for all safer alternatives to smoking.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro 0:34 - So what is the likelihood of implementing a ban on nicotine pouches? 4:44 - What have different groups got to say about the government's plans? 3:39 - Minister of Health's controversial new powers 6:39 - OutroTranscription:
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Joanna Junak: This is part two of our interview with Maria Papaioannoy, where we discuss Canada's plans regarding regulations on nicotine products. Go check out part one of this interview on the GFN YouTube channel. Speaking of nicotine pouches regulations, we see attempts to introduce not necessarily positive regulations regarding safer nicotine products. So what is the likelihood of implementing a ban on nicotine pouches?
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Maria Papaioannoy: I don't know. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, he can ban away. But last week and today, which is October 1st, that we're recording this on, we released a video where I went from store to store within the writing of Minister Holland and was able to purchase within three, four hours over $500 worth of nicotine pouches, all illegal. And I mean, this is a man who swore up and down he's doing this for the kids, but his hypocrisy was like shows if you were doing this for the kids, you'd have a plan for black markets. you'd prepare for this, you'd listen. But what you've done is made it so much more difficult. I went into one of the pharmacies because they're only allowed behind the pharmacy counter. And I asked for one and the pharmacist told me that I'm only allowed to buy one at a time. So one pop because she doesn't want me to abuse nicotine. And I explained to her that I could go across the street to the convenience store and buy 20 cartons of cigarettes. I just said, nicotine, nicotine, is it not? Like, I mean, the problem is combustion and she didn't care. So, you know, I truly believe that we should have spaces and those spaces are specialty vape shops in this country where at a vape shop, you can get all your NRT products. You should be able to access them up. patches or gum or lozenges, nicotine pouches, vaping products, lower nicotine cigarettes if those ever happen, which I think are ridiculous, but whatever. I'm not here to judge someone else's journey. But I think that's the direction we need to be going in if we want to lower the deaths in Canada from tobacco-related illness. It's just as simple as that. But we have a government that sorry, we don't have a government that, we have leaders in our government. We have anti-tobacco, I guess, anti-tobacco dinosaurs who are so afraid of innovation and technology and change because it actually flips the narratives. Because I guess these people for so long, and I think this is around the world, equated smoking with nicotine. And once you take those two and you separate them, it makes people uncomfortable, especially the ones who've built their entire identity on helping people quit smoking. And all of a sudden, the people they were trying to help are helping themselves. So there's so much to unpack there. And I would love to be in a therapy session with one of them. to understand, like just be a fly on the wall when they visit their therapist and say, my whole life is like falling apart. But, you know, I'm just going to continue to engage with them. They ignore me, but I invite them. I invite them to what I do. I try and get invited to what they do. They ignore me, but you know what? I don't treat people the way they treat me. I treat people the way I want to be treated. I believe that I should set the standard and I feel that we all should. So, Yeah, government, I don't know. Again, I'm thankful for Health Canada that when it comes to nicotine, they've taken a strong stand. Our current minister and our previous minister of mental health and addiction have understood the impact of tobacco harm reduction.
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Joanna Junak: Okay, thank you. And the last question to you, Maria. What have different groups got to say about the government's plans?
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Maria Papaioannoy: Well, I mean, the anti-tobacco groups are like, rah, rah, rah. For us, that rates for vapors, it made us realize. And I'm going to share this. It made me realize in Poland, when I was there for the conference and listening, how it's not vaping, it's safer nicotine. And we've decided here at Rights for Vapors that we're expanding it because we've always said the way you quit is your journey. So we want to support the people. So we oppose bans on flavored nicotine pouches. We think that it should be easier to get those products on market. I know there's like consumers choice groups. Recently, a member of the opposition spoke up and out about this, that we have government. People are quitting smoking with us. And it's very hard to fight fairytale narratives because they're so compelling. But again, we're up against anti-tobacco groups that have, like, forget the money. They have 50 years, 60 years. Some of these people have been doing this for 50 years in Canada of experience. And that's priceless. And I'm never going to have that. I'm only 10 years in. So their conniving and manipulative ways kind of shocked me because I'm just trying to be like straight up. Hey, this helped me quit smoking. I'm always shocked when they don't want to talk to me. Even to this day, I'm always shocked because
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Joanna Junak: Thank you, Maria. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. You can also find transcriptions of each episode on the GFN TV website. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.