Many vape outlets will convert to convenience stores following Quebec’s ban on most flavoured vapes, leaving customers to flock to Indigenous communities for supply.
“There’s literally no more reason for the specialty vape shop store category to exist,” says Christina Xydous, co-owner with her brother of five vape stores in Montreal.
Since Halloween night, empty shelves line their store La Vapote, which is centre-east of the island. The ban forced them to pull most of their stock and their best-selling products.
“We’re basically being forced into adopting an entirely new business model,” says Xydous, who is paying out of pocket for the business changes.
Quebec’s hardline approach to flavoured vapes aims to reduce the number of youth who smoke e-cigarettes.
But Xydous worries the ban will push her customers to use regular cigarettes, which many studies have shown to be more detrimental to health, or prepare dangerous do-it-yourself flavoured vapes.
‘Imperative to take action’
Quebec’s new rules, released in April, are intended to decrease e-cigarette use among young adults and teens. The regulations have been in the works since the publication of a health report in late 2020.
“With the growing popularity of vaping products, particularly among young people, it is becoming imperative to take action to prevent a new generation from becoming addicted to nicotine through these products,” Quebec health minister Christian Dubé said in a statement following the report’s release.
Studies show flavours are the main reason minors and young adults take up vaping, the report said. Fruit-flavoured vapes are preferred by more than 60 per cent of 15 to 24 year-olds, compared to only 33 per cent of those over 25.
Health experts in Quebec have reported seeing more teens using e-cigarettes. Dr. Nicholas Chadi, a pediatrician who specializes in adolescent and addiction medicine at Sainte-Justine Hospital, told Montreal CityNews that in the past decade, the rate of young people using e-cigarettes went from about three per cent to 25 per cent.
And while the marketing around flavoured e-cigarettes increases the appeal to vape, it decreases the perception of health hazards from vaping, such as the risk of developing nicotine addiction, a 2017 study found.
“It’s our responsibility as a government not to leave products on the shelves that directly harm [young people’s] physical and mental health and to do everything we can to help them adopt a healthy, active lifestyle,” Quebec sports minister Isabelle Charest said in a statement in April.
The use of higher nicotine levels increased dramatically among vape smokers over the past few years. In 2016, vapes exceeding a nicotine concentration of 18 mg/ml made up less than 10 per cent of the market. By 2018, vapes with a concentration above 20 mg/ml had jumped to 62 per cent of the market, a health ministry publication shows.
Nicotine strengths ranged from 0 to over 60 mg/ml in e-cigarettes before federal regulations were passed in 2021. By comparison, the average in regular cigarettes is 20 mg/ml.
Under Quebec’s new rules, the provincial nicotine concentration for vapes is now capped at 20 mg/ml. And any vapes with a shape, such as a toy, animal, jewel or fictional character that may be attractive to minors, are now banned.
Harm reduction
Other countries have taken a different approach to regulating vapes.
Instead of banning and limiting the supply, they label the smoking device and its accessories as a “harm reduction” approach to smoking. A New Zealand campaign to combat smoking cites vapes as a tool to reduce nicotine intake and quit smoking.
Eight years ago, Xydous and her brother started their vaping business after she experienced firsthand the difficulties of quitting cigarettes and witnessed in her own family how vaping helped people quit.
“No more coughing in the morning and spitting up crud, sputum, brown, orange, yellow sputum. No more shortness of breath at the slightest physical exertion,” she said.
Since then, she has helped hundreds of people gradually lower their nicotine use and ultimately quit smoking. Vapes can be bought with low nicotine concentrations, in the range of three to five per cent.
“Biggest determinant of whether or not someone will become a smoker is whether their parents smoke,” she said. “If you send all of these people back to smoking we are creating another generation of future smokers.”
Flavoured vapes are what entice customers to vape, says Xydous. Tobacco and flavourless vaping options just don’t taste the same and this repels users. Their shops used to see 20 to 30 customers a day. Since the ban, it’s down to two or three.
When her shop and others convert to convenience stores, customers won’t get the same tailored approach to finding a vaping product that’ll match their goals to smoke less.
Convenience store cashiers don’t “get a sense of how much nicotine the person consumes per day in order to guide them towards the proper concentration of nicotine for their vaping products,” said Xydous. “They don’t have time for that.”
Free to sell
Quebec’s vaping laws do not apply to Indigenous communities because they don’t fall under provincial jurisdiction. That means the dozens of shops on Kahnawà :ke, on the south shore near Montreal, are free to sell flavoured vapes.
“There is no law on vapes,” said Ratsénhaienhs Ryan Montour, lead portfolio chief public safety of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà :ke. The only restriction is that reserve stores do not sell to anyone under 18.
In the coming months, the Kahnawà :ke’s Health Board will examine the levels of nicotine in smoking products, says Montour. If the board proposes regulatory changes, the council will draft a proposal to present at a public meeting, he said.
For now, the community is bracing for the possibility of a flood of customers from off reserve.
Millions of travellers traverse the Honoré Mercier Bridge near Kahnawà :ke each year, said Montour. He expects shop owners will contact the council if the increased traffic worries them. Council is on alert to intervene if the traffic becomes too much, he said.
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