Health minister backs quitting with e-cigarettes

The health minister of Canada’s Quebec province, Gaétan Barrette, has come out in favour of using electronic cigarettes as a way to quit smoking, according to a story by Geoffrey Vendeville for the Montreal Gazette.

“Electronic cigarettes are a means to quit smoking that is clearly extraordinarily efficient,” he told reporters after a legislative committee meeting on Tuesday, on the occasion of the Quebec Tobacco-free Week (January 18 to 24).

Quebec was expected soon to clear up the legislative “grey zone” covering e-cigarettes, he said, but a spokesperson for the minister assigned to public health, Lucie Charlebois, couldn’t say when a bill would be tabled.

Meanwhile, the borough of Montreal North and the Société de Transport de Montréal have gone their own way.

Those who vape in municipal buildings in Montreal North are liable to be fined $50 for a first offence and $100 the next time.

“I’m not against e-cigarettes as a way to quit smoking,” said borough mayor Gilles Deguire. “In that sense, I say go for it.

“But I don’t see why anyone has to puff in a municipal office building, library, community center or arena.”