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It’s a move that has left nicotine pouch users scrambling. In late August, Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland followed through on his March threat to severely limit the availability of nicotine pouches, citing the need to protect youth. The new restrictions ban the sale of nicotine pouches at all retail locations, allowing access only behind the pharmacy counter. As a result, thousands are now without access to this critical safer nicotine product.

Featuring:
Frank Parker
Public Affairs Consultant
Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocate


Transcription:

00:00:10 --> 00:01:08


Brent Stafford: Hi, I'm Brent Stafford and welcome to another edition of RegWatch on GFN.TV. In a major blow to tobacco harm reduction in Canada, Health Minister Mark Holland has banned the sale of nicotine pouches at all retail locations and online, making them available only behind the counter at pharmacies. It's a drastic measure that significantly undermines adult access to this essential safer nicotine product. purportedly in an effort to keep these products out of the hands of youth. However, the motive behind the move is in question, as the health minister, a former lobbyist with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, has demonstrated a special animus towards tobacco companies bordering on the hysterical. Joining us today to talk through the impact of Canada's new ban on nicotine pouches is Frank Parker, a public affairs consultant and tobacco harm reduction advocate. Frank, thanks for coming on the show.



00:01:09 --> 00:01:10


Frank Parker: Thanks for having me, Brent.



00:01:10 --> 00:01:41


Brent Stafford: Quick note to our viewers about my voice. I got diagnosed with a polyp on a vocal cord a couple months ago, and it's been a little hard to shake, but I do press on. Frank, you penned an op-ed published in the Toronto Sun that draws attention to what you call Ottawa's anti-science war on safer nicotine products. It was a great piece. I think it captures much of the frustration with this new ban. Let me ask you, why did you write this piece and are you personally impacted?



00:01:43 --> 00:02:03


Frank Parker: Well, thank you. Well, I am a nicotine pouch user. I've used it to switch off of more harmful alternatives. And it was great having easy access to it. And I thought I needed to speak up because someone needed to. And it was an opportunity to take a stand on it.



00:02:03 --> 00:02:06


Brent Stafford: So what did you think when you first heard of the potential ban?



00:02:08 --> 00:02:53


Frank Parker: Oh, it was ridiculous. This was... This is the best way to reduce smoking rates in Canada, or get people off of the harmful stuff and get them onto stuff that is a lot better for you. And they're just going about it the wrong way. Are these restrictions a detriment to health? A hundred percent. I've been lucky. I've been able to get regular supply because I've had a couple of friends go to the United States and bring me back some. But friends of mine haven't been so lucky. Some tried the lozenges or the gum, but a lot of them have gone back to what they did before, whether that was cigarettes, chewing tobacco or whatever else. And bad public health decisions lead to higher smoking rates.



00:02:54 --> 00:02:56


Brent Stafford: Is this a quit or die mentality?



00:02:58 --> 00:03:23


Frank Parker: It is. This is exactly what it is. In the space of harm reduction, you see in most areas there's been progress. But in this case, it seems with nicotine that there's zealots out there, including the minister himself, who believe that you either need to quit using or die. And there's no middle ground for these better products. And it makes no sense.



00:03:24 --> 00:03:28


Brent Stafford: Has there been an outcry from Canadian users of nicotine pouches?



00:03:29 --> 00:04:09


Frank Parker: I don't think there has been a loud enough one yet. I'd encourage all nicotine pouch users to speak up. You got to let your MPs know that this is crazy, that this isn't acceptable. They don't target other groups of people, but former tobacco users seem to be an easy punching bag. And we need to make our voices heard at the ballot box. We need our MPs hearing about this, that they can't be making decisions that hurt public health. Because as I said, I've got friends who have had to go back to other products. And if I didn't have friends going to the United States to get the nicotine pouches, I would be going back to chewing tobacco.



00:04:10 --> 00:04:13


Brent Stafford: Yeah, chewing tobacco. So were you a heavy user?



00:04:15 --> 00:04:46


Frank Parker: Uh, I was, yes. Uh, it was, uh, I, I, I picked it up. Uh, I never, smoking was never for me. I played hockey, played baseball and I just didn't, the idea of something going in my lungs, just, it wasn't going to happen. But when I picked up chewing tobacco, it was great. It helped me focus. It helped, uh, helped kind of ease the nerves a little bit. And, uh, it fits in nicely when you're playing softball, uh, in the summer with the boys. And, uh, It was an easy habit.



00:04:48 --> 00:04:50


Brent Stafford: But it's a bit, chaw is a bit messy, isn't it?



00:04:51 --> 00:05:21


Frank Parker: Oh yes. There's a lot of brushing your teeth during that. And it's not as socially acceptable to be spitting constantly either. So it was great that I was able to switch to, I switched to snooze first, which is it's a, it was pre nicotine pouches, but it's a better alternative that doesn't require spitting. It's a little bit more socially acceptable. And then when nicotine pouches came online, it was, it's perfect. It's, All the benefits with none of the drawbacks.



00:05:22 --> 00:05:25


Brent Stafford: So did you quit using nicotine pouches or was it the snooze?



00:05:26 --> 00:05:32


Frank Parker: So snooze is what got me off of chewing tobacco and then nicotine pouches got me off of snooze. So it's tobacco-free 100% now.



00:05:34 --> 00:05:38


Brent Stafford: Why are nicotine pouches better, do you think, for your health and well-being?



00:05:39 --> 00:06:11


Frank Parker: It's just pure nicotine. There's nothing else in it. And I even read that it's artificial sweeteners in it. So you don't have to worry about your teeth as much with the sugar either. So you get all of the benefits. As someone who's going to continue to use nicotine, and I choose to continue to use nicotine, it's a much better product. I really like that there's none of that bad aftertaste. You don't have to spit. It's a good flavor, and you get the same nicotine hit that you would from other products.



00:06:11 --> 00:06:16


Brent Stafford: Now, shouldn't you be worried about nicotine use? We kind of hear that it's really dangerous.



00:06:18 --> 00:07:02


Frank Parker: That's the problem. These people that... point to nicotine as the big public health villain are causing a detriment to public health. Nicotine is not the problem. Most of the problems related with tobacco-related diseases are from smoking, like lighting something on fire and breathing in those fumes. And for chewing tobacco, it's just some of the supplements that come from the tobacco. That's what the risk is there. Nicotine is not. It's just like caffeine. It's not at all a carcinogen. And that is a big mistake that public health experts make when they go after nicotine the way they have.



00:07:03 --> 00:07:21


Brent Stafford: Let's dive in a little bit, Frank, into how this restriction has impacted your access to nicotine pouches and others. I mean, we hear that some people have to drive, you know, a couple hundred miles because Canada is pretty big, right? And pretty rural in some places. This is not the easiest access.



00:07:23 --> 00:08:38


Frank Parker: No, it's not. And, uh, I'm in Ottawa, so I'm not in a rural area. So you think in theory, the pharmacies here would have it. I have gone into multiple pharmacies, they don't. Pharmacists look at you funny, like what? They had no idea the fast turnaround of this change. There was no transition period. So there wasn't enough time to supply the pharmacies that wanted to carry it. There wasn't enough time for the companies to get pharmacies that didn't want to carry it educated and on board. And the corner stores were shut down within a week of the announcement. And so I've been to multiple pharmacies. I've even went to the website where that shows the stores and it's not in any of the Rexalls or the Shoppers Drug Marts where they're kind of everywhere. It's in some of the smaller ones. And even then, when you go in, they've either run out if they had it or they haven't had it come in yet. So it's been rough. I've lucked out in that a couple of friends went to the United States, but otherwise you're driving to, because there are stores that are selling it, are selling products that haven't been approved yet in Canada, but those are hard to find.



00:08:40 --> 00:09:18


Brent Stafford: Well, we'll talk more about the contraband aspect on that in a minute. We should right now explain for our viewers what exactly happened in Canada. Imperial Tobacco's nicotine pouch product is called Zonic, and it was approved last year by Health Canada as an aid to quit smoking. The approval came without any restrictions on the age of consumers and was made available for sale in gas stations and convenience stores across the country. The product was approved in various flavors and the company activated point of sale marketing that was visually captivating. Maybe a little too captivating. Frank, what do you think?



00:09:19 --> 00:10:46


Frank Parker: Oh, I think let's be clear. Nobody wants you to pick up nicotine of any type, whether it's smoking or whether it's nicotine pouches. So at the point of sale, I think asking for identification makes perfect sense. Now, the flavors, I'm a mint guy personally. That works for me. But I think we're overly focused on the flavors from Health Canada. They focus in on it that it's targeting children, but the reality is this is for adult users of tobacco switching to another product and we shouldn't be whatever flavor works should be what works so i i'm a little frustrated with that and mint works for me but it doesn't work for everybody so i i don't understand why they're going after all the different flavors and sure maybe restrict some of the marketing although like i think These companies need the ability to get people to stop smoking or chewing tobacco. They got to tell the story and you got to be able to reach consumers. And we're better than at the point of sale where you're looking at the stand. So sure, they could have done a couple of restrictions, and I don't think anyone would have batted an eye, but to completely remove it from convenience stores and all gas stations just make no sense. They're still selling cigarettes. They're still selling chewing tobacco. And in some provinces, they sell alcohol too. They're very good at asking for ID. So it's outrageous.



00:10:47 --> 00:10:55


Brent Stafford: So essentially, they're still being trusted to sell cigarettes, which is the most deadly of all the products, but they can't be trusted to sell nicotine pouches.



00:10:57 --> 00:11:11


Frank Parker: Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. And it's led to some of my friends who have made that switch going back, picking up a pack of cigarettes or picking up chewing tobacco. And that's the opposite of a good public health outcome in my view.



00:11:12 --> 00:11:33


Brent Stafford: So not too long after the product was on the market, the usual cabal of anti-vaping, anti-nicotine nonprofit health groups raised the alarm about youth. And that's when Mark Holland, the Minister of Health, jumped in on the issue. I've got a package here with clips from a press conference the minister held last March. Let's have a listen.



00:11:35 --> 00:13:30


Mark Holland Video: Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak today. I had said that I would be coming and speaking about actions we're taking with respect to nicotine pouches and I'm pl eased to be able to speak with some additional details on the action that our government is going to be taking. The tobacco industry yet again used a loophole to try to create innovation in the space of cessation to get people off of these products to create a brand new line of products that addicts particularly kids to products that are deadly for their health. The tobacco industries have been successful in addicting a whole new cohort of young people to these products. To me, it is absolutely essential that we see these products move behind counter. And let me be really clear about the size of this problem. I am talking to oral health professionals as we're rolling out a national dental care program. And what do I hear in those conversations? But that young people, under their tongue when they're playing hockey or baseball or sports, have these products. And they're destroying their oral health. They're putting them at risk of cancer and all kinds of illness. And these are kids who have no exposure to tobacco or nicotine before. That's entirely unacceptable. I was with Heart and Stroke when we dealt with the issue of vaping. And there were many voices at that time when information was uncertain who said, let this exist as a cessation tool. Don't take action. The result of that, unfortunately, was that the tobacco industry was able to addict a whole new cohort of young people who had no exposure to nicotine to something that's absolutely deadly for their health. My objection in this instance is that the marketing that was done by the tobacco industry around these tobacco pouches had nothing to do with cessation. It had everything to do with trying to create a lifestyle and an attraction to a new product that's going to addict people who have no exposure to nicotine or tobacco as another delivery mechanism to that product, which is an agent of death.



00:13:33 --> 00:13:35


Brent Stafford: Well, that was really something. Frank, what do you make of that?



00:13:39 --> 00:14:55


Frank Parker: It's ridiculous. Minister Holland should know better. The full outrage and the claim that they've been duped, the reality is smoking rates, they weren't declining. They were stagnating. And products like vaping and now nicotine pouches have lowered the smoking rates in Canada because adult users who choose to use nicotine have made the switch to a better product for their health. And Minister Holland is posturing it's political. There are those in the anti-tobacco, anti-smoking groups that understand it's much better to switch to less harmful alternatives. Nobody's trying to get kids onto anything. But the reality is some will. Abstinence does not work in sex education and it doesn't work for nicotine. But If you're going to pick it up, you should be able to pick up something that's a lot less harmful. And I get really frustrated when I hear these guys saying that vaping or nicotine pouches are a gateway to smoking or deadly tobacco. It's the opposite. It's getting people off of smoking. It's getting people off of chewing tobacco. And the minister just doesn't get it.



00:14:56 --> 00:15:11


Brent Stafford: Now, I mean, shouldn't there be some mechanism in which that the minister of health of a country won't lie to the citizens? I mean, because clearly nobody's died of vaping, but yet he says it like it's a fact.



00:15:14 --> 00:15:52


Frank Parker: I think when it comes to Minister Holland, he lacks both the judgment and the temperament to be the minister of health. At that point and throughout the spring, there were a lot of outbursts that made me question him. Brian Lilly wrote a piece in the Toronto Sun in the summer saying, is Mark Holland okay? He went on a tirade about kids going on road trips and killing the planet. He was all over the place. And it's just the kind of temperament he's shown throughout his career. And I don't think he has what it takes to be the Minister of Health. And I don't think he understands how to make a good public health decision.



00:15:53 --> 00:16:01


Brent Stafford: I've got a bit more of his press conference here that might speak to what you're talking about. Let's have a listen.



00:16:03 --> 00:17:18


Mark Holland Video: I would say to the tobacco companies that continue to look for ways to use loopholes to addict people to their products, Get away. Stay the hell away from our kids. And so there's a few things that we're going to be doing. I'm seeking authority to restrict products so that they are solely for the purposes of cessation. We shouldn't be seeing flavors that are targeting kids. Flavors like, you know, winter berry splash or whatever, tropical fruit, whatever that they're putting out there. Hopefully you can hear my voice and my intention. I don't ever want to go through this again. What we saw happening in vaping, all the illness, the death, the sickness, we cannot allow that to happen in nicotine pouches. So I'm saying through you to the tobacco company, If you do not hear in my voice the concrete nature of the action we will take to meet you, to stop you from going after our children, then you do not understand my determination. I am sick of it. I am absolutely sick of it. Watching and talking to parents dealing with sick children who've been addicted to these products, who've had their reward systems hijacked because they've got companies using their billions of dollars to addict them, it's done.



00:17:24 --> 00:17:26


Brent Stafford: Well, that was the money comment there.



00:17:26 --> 00:17:45


Frank Parker: There we go. The Minister of Health calling nicotine a carcinogen, talking about it getting kids sick. That's blatantly false. And very disappointed to hear a Minister of Health say something like that.



00:17:45 --> 00:17:49


Brent Stafford: Well, and it's challenging the tobacco industry to a fight, to a fist fight.



00:17:50 --> 00:18:17


Frank Parker: Yeah, this isn't a hockey rink. Parliament Hill can get a little rough and tumble sometimes, but come on. We should be encouraging innovation in this space, not fighting it. Nobody wants kids to pick this up, but this has a real good shot at improving the health outcomes and the long-term livelihood of people who choose to use nicotine.



00:18:18 --> 00:19:32


Brent Stafford: Yeah, I think it's important to point out some of the hypocrisies, which there are several in this story. One of them being just kind of the weirdness. When I go into a pharmacy, our local shoppers, I lost my voice in July. It was really bad in August. It was diagnosed early September, and they advised me that I should probably tone down on some of the vaping. while it gets better and switch to maybe a nicotine pouch. That's what my doctor told me. And then of course I went looking and there of course, none, none. But thank goodness my wife is an American who's supplied me with product. But if that wasn't the case, I would be, Right out of luck. You know, and when you go into the pharmacy and you go to the pharmacy counter, at least at the shoppers in my city, it's just filled with all of the nicotine patches, the lounges, the gum, all of this stuff. Easily anybody, a kid could grab something off and go ring it up at one of the tills if they wanted to and walk right out. But I have to ask the pharmacist for the nicotine pouch, which like you've experienced, There are none.



00:19:34 --> 00:20:02


Frank Parker: Yeah. It's outrageous that we're locking up this product behind us. You have to talk to a pharmacist to be able to get it. It just makes zero policy sense for that to happen. And how we got to this point, I don't know. But as we saw from the video there, the minister is a zealot that's on a crusade. there's going to be no common sense coming from him as the minister of health.



00:20:03 --> 00:20:48


Brent Stafford: Well, let me ask you, I mean, we've all heard about regulatory capture. That's when a regulatory agency is captured by the industry they're supposed to regulate and they make decisions based on the interests of that industry. Here, it's a little bit different. You've got a minister of health in Health Canada being the agency captured by nonprofit tobacco control advocacy groups. And he worked for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Might as well bid cancer, you know, and so forth. So there's no way that if he had worked for tobacco or even a pharmaceutical company that he would be able to become health minister. So why is it OK that he's able to make these decisions on this file and it not be a conflict of interest?



00:20:50 --> 00:21:53


Frank Parker: It, well, find me even someone that's a smoker that has been a minister of health in recent years. It's been a portfolio that's kind of been guarded. And I do question where he's getting his advice. And I am concerned by that. And it's, there are good people in this space that are advocating for less harmful alternatives. Listen to them. But my fear overall with Health Canada is it's a department that's gone amok to begin with. There's been a lot of policy decisions made over the last decade there that just don't make any sense, whether it's taking meat and dairy out of the food guide, which is supposed to be an educational tool for kids, or whether it's trying to slap health warning labels on ground pork and ground beef. They've kind of been all over the map and You need political oversight of the department. And with Minister Holland, you don't have that. He's going to let them do whatever they want. And he's got that quit or die mentality.



00:21:55 --> 00:22:13


Brent Stafford: And let me ask you, in your opinion, did they make an argument backed up by evidence that there was some sort of youth epidemic or some big, huge move of youth to be using these products? Because it seemed to me that they provided zero evidence of that.



00:22:14 --> 00:23:20


Frank Parker: There's zero evidence. And even to the point of the sicknesses that he's hearing about, which doesn't happen from nicotine, it's governed by anecdote, which is dangerous. We need to have good confidence in public health authorities. We need to be able to trust them. And when we've got a minister of health saying things like that, you can't. You can't believe it. The science is clear on this so far that nicotine, These nicotine pouches are way better for you than chewing tobacco, smoking, et cetera. And that should be how we look at this. Other countries have taken a different view from Canada. You look at Sweden, and they are almost the first smoke-free country in the world at just over 5%. And they took on the complete opposite approach. They embraced this. They embraced snus. They embraced nicotine pouches. And people are stopping smoking. They have the lowest tobacco-related diseases in Europe, far lower than any of their neighbors. And they're following the science. Canada is not.



00:23:21 --> 00:23:27


Brent Stafford: Frank, do you think the popularity of Zin in the U.S. has anything to do with this campaign?



00:23:29 --> 00:23:56


Frank Parker: I think so. I think you've seen it kind of take a little bit of a social media viral moment here where it's become a bit of a meme out there for people. And I think the interest there has certainly impacted the views of Minister Holland. But it's a product that's working to help get people off of cigarettes. That should be encouraged.



00:23:57 --> 00:24:00


Brent Stafford: maybe he doesn't like the kind of people that like to use this product.



00:24:02 --> 00:24:41


Frank Parker: That could be fair. And I think that that is a valid concern. And you see who, you see who it is. It's the people that, uh, turns people that I grew up with. I'm from a small town in rural Ontario. Uh, yes, my, my, my writing always goes conservative. Uh, but, uh, It was common for people to use chewing tobacco. It's common on the prairies, and it's in communities where maybe the minister wouldn't get a warm reception. And I hope that that's not part of his considerations, but with kind of how he's spiraled out of control on this and on other issues, you have to worry.



00:24:42 --> 00:24:47


Brent Stafford: Is there any hypocrisy here with the federal government's position on safe supplies?



00:24:50 --> 00:25:24


Frank Parker: 100%. They claim to be supportive of harm reduction there, and yet they want to lock nicotine pouches behind a pharmacy but not opioids. They can't have it both ways, and they're just picking on nicotine here, and they're trying to make it harder for people who choose to use nicotine to switch to less harmful alternatives. It's extremely frustrating as one of those people, but hopefully we can get a little bit more common sense in the not too distant future.



00:25:25 --> 00:25:32


Brent Stafford: Now, isn't this just going to backfire on the government? What about the black market? And I think you probably have got some thoughts on that.



00:25:34 --> 00:26:22


Frank Parker: Absolutely. I said earlier, there are stores that have Zin, which isn't approved yet in Canada. That is a contraband product. If you know the stores to go to, you can find it. The government's not getting any revenue on that. And the other issue is you risk having knockoffs that could have things in them that aren't in nicotine pouches, that aren't controlled by regulatory bodies. And you risk people getting sick or ill. And you saw a couple of times with vaping where there was a little bit of contraband products that were, they were the problem and not the regulatory stuff. It's a huge loss for revenue, and it is a potential health risk if there's other alternatives.



00:26:23 --> 00:26:25


Brent Stafford: Are you disappointed with your government?



00:26:27 --> 00:27:06


Frank Parker: I am extremely disappointed. This was a policy that hurts public health. The way it's being explained hurts public health. The minister saying nicotine is a carcinogen is blatantly false and it's been proven for decades. You expect public health decisions to be made to help people improve their health outcomes. And this has been done in a spiteful way because he has a view of tobacco companies. Or if a tobacco company wants to get you off of cigarettes and tobacco, that sounds like they're moving in the right direction. Maybe the government should too.



00:27:08 --> 00:27:13


Brent Stafford: Yeah, that's the funny thing. They've got no room in their hearts for redemption for tobacco companies, that's for sure.



00:27:14 --> 00:27:17


Frank Parker: No. They're living in the 1950s.



00:27:18 --> 00:27:20


Brent Stafford: So is there any remedy for this?



00:27:22 --> 00:27:54


Frank Parker: Well, if you're a nicotine pouch user, if you use vaping products, you've got to make your voices heard. Call up your MP's office. You've got to write in. And most importantly, you've got to make your vote count. When a candidate comes to your door, tell her that you don't like this policy. They need to hear. You need to make sure that not only the current government, but the potential alternatives are aware that this is an issue that matters and you're going to vote on your health.