ΕΝΑ νέα αναφορά from the Consumer Choice Center exposes a troubling pattern in Canada. Several major public health organisations are taking government money and using it to lobby against the very tools that help smokers quit. The Consumer Choice Center calls this circular lobbying: taxpayers fund charities, charities lobby the government, and the cycle repeats.

The organisations in question include the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario Lung Association and its subsidiary the Lung Health Foundation, the Canadian Lung Association, and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. Together, they receive millions in public funding. And together, they consistently oppose vaping, nicotine pouches, and flavoured products.

The problem is that the science does not support their positions.

Vaping is well established as a λιγότερο επιβλαβής εναλλακτική λύση to smoking. Public Health England put the figure at around 95% less harmful than cigarettes. Cochrane Reviews found with high certainty that nicotine vaping outperforms traditional nicotine replacement therapies for quitting. The UK government has built its entire tobacco strategy around it. Canada’s own government has stated that switching completely to vaping is less harmful than continuing to smoke.

None of this seems to matter to these organisations.

The Canadian Cancer Society advocates for flavour bans on vapes, despite research showing that adults using flavoured e-cigarettes have 230% higher odds of quitting compared to those using tobacco-flavoured or unflavoured products. The Canadian Lung Association pushed to have nicotine pouches restricted to behind pharmacy counters, making a proven cessation tool harder to access. The Lung Health Foundation, which shares a charity registration with the Ontario Lung Association, describes vaping as “Big Tobacco 2.0.” Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada ran billboard campaigns pushing for a federal flavour ban.

On youth vaping, several of these groups have claimed the problem is growing. Canada’s own statistics say otherwise. The Canadian Health Survey for Children and Youth showed youth vaping dropped from 13.2% in 2019 to 7.2% in 2023, nearly a 50% decline. The organisations promoting the opposite narrative are doing so with public money.

There is a real cost to this. Every smoker who cannot access flavoured vapes, or who finds nicotine pouches locked behind a pharmacy counter, is a smoker who may not quit. Smoking kills. The alternatives are considerably less harmful. Restricting access to those alternatives, while claiming to protect public health, is not just misguided. It is harmful.

What makes this worse is the funding structure. These groups present themselves as independent voices. They are not. The Canadian Cancer Society received over $24 million in government money in a single fiscal period. Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada derived nearly 85% of its budget from government sources. When governments cite these organisations to justify restrictive policies, they are citing advocacy they largely paid for.

Smokers in Canada deserve better than this. They deserve honest information and access to less harmful alternatives. What they are getting instead is publicly funded opposition to the tools that could save their lives. What can you do? Participate and join the campaign to “Unlock The Pouch” from our partners, Rights4Vapers.