Long-term thinking demands more than slogans
By Lethbridge Herald on October 7, 2025.
Editor,
On Oct. 2, the Lethbridge Herald published an Opinion by Doug Roth, Andrea Seale, and Sarah Butson, the heads of three Canadian health groups, calling for provinces to dedicate a large portion of the $32.5-billion tobacco litigation settlement to prevention and control of tobacco and nicotine use. Their arguments sound compelling, but they leave out key facts that Canadians deserve to hear.
First, this settlement is not an open-ended health fund. It is a court-approved agreement designed to compensate provinces and territories for past health-care costs. Suggesting that it can, or should, finance every anti-tobacco program moving forward is misleading.Â
The dollars are very significant, but they are finite. They must be invested wisely – in strategies that reduce smoking, not in rehashed, out of date campaigns that stigmatize smokers but don’t actually help them quit.
Second, the piece lumps tobacco, nicotine, and vaping together as if they are the same. They are not. The diseases the authors cite are caused by the combustion of tobacco – not nicotine itself. Health Canada, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization all recognize this distinction. Conflating the two risks undermining harm reduction efforts that could save millions of lives.
Finally, if long-term vision is the goal, then settlement funds cannot ignore harm reduction. The 3.6 million adult Canadians who still smoke need seamless access to regulated, science-based nicotine smoking cessation products like ZONNIC – the first Health Canada authorized nicotine replacement therapy product in pouch format.Â
Denying these tools does not prevent smoking; it perpetuates it.
We agree with the authors that youth must be protected. At Imperial Tobacco Canada we are clear: no youth should ever use or have access to any nicotine products. Y
et, the real threat is the illicit market, which make these unregulated nicotine and tobacco products easily accessible online and on the streets. If health groups and politicians are serious about protecting young people, settlement funds must also go toward stronger enforcement of the current laws to combat the illegal market.
A smokeless Canada will not be achieved through rhetoric alone. It requires pragmatic, science-based policy prevention, yes, but also access to lower-risk alternatives and enforcement against the black market. That is what long-term vision really looks like.Â
Anything less is politics dressed up as public health.
Eric Gagnon
VP of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, Imperial Tobacco Canada
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Imperial Tobacco Canada -Corporate has blood on their hands
Imperial, hardly worthy of respect or trust, counsels we blow the wad on “harm reduction”, such as buying big pharm chemical products and investment in nicotene police. cynical, to say the least.
while a fraction of a return relative to the real costs to health care and society, put the money back into health care, which is from whence it came.