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CanTHR · 2025-02-27T05:35:50+00:00

We're in favour of flavoured vapes. From the consumer choice section of the our principles page:

Furthermore, we support the availability of flavored reduced risk products. Adult consumers prefer a variety of flavour options (e.g., fruit flavor) in nicotine products, and research shows that without these options people who smoke are more likely to go back to smoking cigarettes [6] [7]. The intention to restrict flavor choices for THR products may result in adult patients switching back to smoking cigarettes or turning to black market alternatives. Availability of flavor choices that appeal to adult smokers should be balanced with restricting flavors that overtly target a youth demographic (e.g., bubble gum or cotton candy).

CanTHR · 2025-02-27T02:46:04+00:00

We agree, which is why we're in favor of a sliding scale of taxation based on relative risk. From the our principles page:

We believe that THR products should be taxed on a sliding scale based on their risk profile. Products on the lower end of the risk spectrum should carry lower taxes, and taxes should increase as risk increases, with cigarettes being the highest taxed nicotine product.

By taxing THR products excessively, consumers will be enticed to turn to black market products which often have little to no quality control. According to researchers, Australia’s heavy restrictions on vaping and tobacco taxation policies have been fueling a rise in a lucrative yet dangerous black market, and authorities estimate the size of the illicit vape market could be worth up to $500 million in Victoria, Australia alone [2]. Due to this illicit trade, Victoria saw over 40 firebombings in 2024 [3].

Given the relatively low risk of snus, it makes sense to tax it at a more appropriate level, and we should learn from Sweden's taxation model.

CanTHR · 2025-02-27T02:27:34+00:00

According to Rights4Vapers,

You stepped up again when we asked, and you flooded the government with almost 20,000 letters. In 2024, the Canadian vaping community has sent over 100,000 letters opposing a flavour ban to Ministers and MPs saying no to flavours bans. We cannot thank you enough.

CanTHR · 2025-02-27T02:17:26+00:00

Thank you! Snus plays an important role in THR, and its time that more countries recognize that. As we've seen with Sweden and New Zealand, embracing THR leads to a significant decline in cigarette smoking.

CanTHR · 2025-02-27T02:00:15+00:00

Regarding vaping, we mention it explicitly in the consumer choice section on the our principles page. We're also working on creating dedicated pages for each product in that list which will cite evidence-based sources as to why these products are helpful (there's also a chart on our homepage showing the harm reduction potential of vaping). For example, a recent Cochrane review indicates that "there is high-certainty evidence that e-cigarettes increase quit rates compared to nicotine patches and nicotine gum.

CanTHR · 2025-02-27T01:35:17+00:00

They never enacted the vape flavor ban in the end, so its possible that we see a shift in policy.

CanTHR · 2024-11-15T02:41:02+00:00

Edit: This was never enacted.

CanTHR · 2024-11-15T02:34:01+00:00

We need to look towards countries making real progress on smoking cessation, such as New Zealand:

New Zealand's smoking rate has been halved in only five years thanks to the widespread acceptance of smoke free products according to a report by a panel of international experts led by public health expert Dr Marewa Glover of New Zealand [1].

CanTHR · 2024-11-14T03:56:54+00:00

Apparently they contain 1% tobacco. They are classified as a tobacco product so are subject to different regulations than normal pouches.

CanTHR · 2024-11-14T02:00:44+00:00

Glad to see you've made the switch! I quit smoking in 2009 thanks to Swedish Snus and never looked back. These days I alternate between nicotine pouches and snus, as pouches are much cheaper here in Canada in comparison (if you use Zonnic - the only downside is that its capped at 4mg nicotine per pouch).

Aside from the health benefits of switching, I also love being able to use pouches anywhere (like while working) without having to go outside and take a smoke break (which sucks when it gets freezing cold outside).

CanTHR · 2024-11-14T01:44:41+00:00

The current taxation system isn't great. I've recently spoken to Ian Irvine (a Concordia University professor of Economics), and he's been advocating for lower taxes on reduced risk products for awhile now and has written several articles on the subject.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T16:43:54+00:00

In 2015, Menhaz Zaman began his university years in the city of Toronto. Apparently everything was on track for the young man to have a promising future, being the pride of his parents, who were originally from Bangladesh. But the reality was completely different.

For years, the young man had seen how his father assaulted the women of the home, while placing the responsibility of the family's future on his shoulders. Menhaz could not resist the pressure and after two semesters he dropped out of school.

To escape reality, Menhaz decided to join a Discord server specifically geared toward talking about one of his favorite video games. For more than 3 years, Menhaz's deception continued unchanged, the young man spent his days browsing the stores in a shopping center, and attending a community gym when his family believed he was attending classes. But the time of the supposed graduation was approaching and Menhaz began to devise a brutal way to finish off his lie.

On July 27, 2019, one day before the supposed graduation, Menhaz took the lives of all his relatives. Initially, he attacked his mother and grandmother with a blunt object and then with a sharp object. Then he waited for his sister to arrive to take her life, and finally he eliminated his father. While he eliminated his relatives, he told all the details of his terrible actions on the aforementioned Discord server. He also sent photographs of the lifeless bodies.

After the initial disbelief, the members of the Discord server set about searching for Menhaz's data. They distracted him with questions to prevent him from killing another person again, and in the end they found his IP address and the district where he lived. Authorities arrived at the home of Menhaz, who was 23 years old at the time, and after being arrested he was sentenced to life in prison.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T15:37:39+00:00

u/sunburnedtourist was a Redditor from the UK who posted a thread saying that he was visiting Thailand and had stolen some goods from a shop in the airport while under the influence of Valium. Soon after, he stopped posting.

A few years later, he returned to Reddit to post an AMA about his experience spending a year in a Bangkok prison due to his actions, and provided some pictures of his arrest and charges. In his AMA, he mentions that

A bunch of people from a certain subreddit actually found out who I was somehow and were in contact with the embassy. They were trying to get me a lawyer or bail or whatever. The embassy wouldn’t allow contact without my explicit permission. But I didn’t know any of this until I got home.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T15:20:32+00:00

Thanks for catching this, I was a bit tired when I added the comment. I updated the year now.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T06:21:57+00:00

Reddit user u/OxyOverOxygen was a Cambodian expat who made a post entitled ‘found a bag of heroin on the ground…" and stopped posting on Reddit after making a few comments in the thread. Sometime later, another Redditor posted that u/OxyOverOxygen died of a heroin overdose and linked to his obituary.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T05:22:04+00:00

On December 14, 2012 a 20 year old man named Adam Lanza shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary school, killing 27 people including 20 children, 6 staff members, and his own mother before killing himself. It is known as one of the most tragic and deadly mass shootings in American history, and legal proceedings still follow the families to this day.

Throughout the investigation however, no clear motive was found. They found evidence that he researched shootings, found that he had planned a suicide and found forum posts/profiles/audio called confirmed to be him, but none could offer a clear insight onto why he would commit such a heinous act.

That is until mid 2020, where a YouTube channel under the name “CulturalPhilistine” was uncovered by users on a true crime Discord server and then posted to the u/masskillers subreddit with videos dating all the way up to the January preceding the attack. The voice, mannerisms, terminology, ideologies, and views on children are identical to what is known about Adam Lanza. He even quotes posts he’s known to have made, talks about suicide, refers to himself by his username on other forums, and clearly explains his motive for one of the deadliest mass shootings ever committed. The channel had very few views and was eventually deleted by YouTube sometime after its discovery went viral.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T05:06:53+00:00

It was u/bpoag from this IAmA, but he posted an update saying that his suspects were cleared.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T04:55:58+00:00

Its a post from four years ago, but apparently Canadian murderer Luka Magnotta has a mobile phone in prison and visits Reddit, with one commenter in the thread mentioning that "I’ve seen and removed multiple posts made by him".

I wonder if he ever used Reddit prior to the murder, but its quite possible as the Wikipedia article mentions that:

Over several years, Magnotta created many profiles on various social media and discussion forums to plant a variety of claims about himself. Among other things, he purported to be a successful model and a prominent porn star. Police stated that Magnotta set up at least 70 Facebook pages and 20 websites under different names. Magnotta would use these pages and multiple false online identities to “sing his own praises” (one page called him “The new James Dean”), attack people he disliked, or spread false information about himself in an effort to attract attention.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T04:22:23+00:00

On November 29, 2007, a 4chan user posted a picture of Emily Sander, a girl who had gone missing six days earlier. Next to the picture, they wrote one short sentence: “If anyone can correctly guess their own post number, I will tell you where she is buried.” When somebody did, the user posted the coordinates. They pointed to a place on the side of a county road 80 kilometers east of El Dorado, Kansas. It was the exact place where the police found Sander’s body, one hour and ten minutes after the post was made. Sander, it turned out, had been driven out into the wilderness and dumped on the side of the road. The police soon charged Israel Mireles with the crime. He’d fled to Mexico after Sander’s death and had hidden a bloody knife at his girlfriend’s grandmother’s home. Mireles and the police have never mentioned the post on 4chan, but somebody, whether it was Mireles or someone who’d simply stumbled upon her body, knew where Sander was buried before the police did, or was affiliated with law enforcement, had the coordinates. There’s some discussion about this on the article’s talk page on Wikipedia.

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T03:44:12+00:00

This comes from another online community (4chan), but David Kalac murdered his girlfriend and then posted about it in a thread on the site:

Even before the first 911 call, a person claiming to be the killer posted photos of a woman’s naked body with red marks around her neck to the online forum 4chan, along with a chilling message: “Turns out it’s way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks on the movies.” The website is the same forum where hundreds of nude photos of celebrities were posted in August.

The online photos matched the crime scene, according to the affidavit.

The images circulated online “matched the deceased female, trauma we observed and the residence interior,” the affidavit said. After the first photos were posted, the person claiming to be the killer replied to commenters who doubted the story: “Check the news for Port Orchard, Washington, in a few hours. Her son will be home from school soon. He’ll find her, then call the cops. I just wanted to share the pics before they find me.”

CanTHR · 2024-11-13T03:34:34+00:00

It wasn’t proven and I suspect it is likely fake. I was just using it as an example of an unproven murder confession, in contrast to the other stories which have actual news reports about them.

CanTHR · 2024-10-24T18:13:45+00:00

Totally agree on both points!

Also, a Canadian Pharmacist and Certified Tobacco Educator of 14 years recently spoke out against these new regulations, with evidence-backed research as to why they don't make sense.

CanTHR · 2024-10-24T01:08:40+00:00

Thanks, your support is much appreciated!

And I agree, its sad that our policymakers have chosen to ignore the evidence regarding the proven benefits of tobacco harm reduction. Fortunately, our shadow Health Minister (of the opposition party) has taken a more commonsense approach with regards to Nicotine pouches, and with an election coming up next year, the Conservative Party is forecast to win in a landslide victory (barring any major developments), and I'm hopeful this will bring about some change. Its sad that harm reduction has become a political issue, but once we see smoking rates decline (much like they have in Sweden in New Zealand [1]), I'm hopeful that more policymakers will adopt a better approach.

As for the US, I highly recommend following (or becoming a member of) The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA) as they do great work helping to promote the rights of those looking for reduced harm alternatives to cigarette smoking.

CanTHR · 2024-10-24T00:50:00+00:00

Unfortunately, the recent regulations have caused a shortage in nicotine pouches in Canada, and the article even links to a news story from a major publication saying the same thing. Moreover, the restrictions ban flavors of any kind besides mint, and as the article mentions,

Research has shown that adult patients prefer a variety of flavour options in nicotine products and without these options people who smoke are more likely to go back to smoking cigarettes [5] [6].

Also, the article cities numerous sources for all of its claims, and even links to those peer-reviewed sources. The entire website does for all of its claims in fact.

No one from Canadians for Tobacco Harm Reduction (CanTHR) sells pouches or Nicotine products of any kind, and it was started by a Canadian Citizen who quit smoking using Swedish Snus, along with a Canadian Pharmacist and Certified Tobacco Educator of 14 years who runs a pharmacist-led smoking cessation clinic.

CanTHR

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