Vaping and nicotine pouches help people quit their tobacco inhalation habit. Public health policy shouldn't work against them

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By David Clement

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During the federal election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s past roles at Brookfield Asset Management and with the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (FGANZ) came under some scrutiny. His membership on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies did not. But it should have. Bloomberg Philanthropies is the world’s preeminent bankroller of public-health puritans, those who wage a relentless, well-funded war against harm reduction from tobacco. Since 2005, they’ve poured $1.58 billion, nearly six per cent of their total spend, into discouraging less harmful forms of nicotine consumption, thus ignoring reason and pragmatism.

As of 2022, 10.2 per cent of Canadians still smoke. The most effective way to reduce that number is not sanctimonious sermons by groups Bloomberg funds, but in the hard-won lessons of nations like Sweden and Japan, where harm reduction has triumphed over dogma.

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Sweden’s smoking rate is now down to five per cent. How did the........

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