Public Use Micro File of the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Survey (CSTADS) is now available

This post provides information on the release of the Public Use Micro File (PUMF) for the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug (CSTADS), 2020-2021.

CSTADS is a periodic survey funded by Health Canada on the substance use of Canadian middle and high school students. It has been conducted four times over the past decade - during the school years 2014-2015, 2015-2017, 2018-2019 and then 2021-22. The first 3 waves were conducted by the University of Waterloo, after which the work was was contracted to CCI research. 

The results of the 2021-22 wave - reported in an earlier blog post - were first made public in May, but were withdrawn from Health Canada's website soon afterwards for unspecified technical reasons. They were recently re-uploaded and updated. 

CSTADS (now CSADS) is the largest youth health survey in Canada. Information from more than 61,000 students in grades 7 to 12 was provided during class time from most parts of the country. (New Brunswick declined to participate in 3 of the waves, including the most recent one). 

Last week the data files for the 2020-2021 wave of the survey were made public on the federal Open Government Portal. These allow exploration of information not provided on the tables presented by Health Canada, and for more in-depth analysis. 

The charts shown below are derived from the PUMF file, but are presented without the benefit of statistical tests.

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By the time they leave high school, almost 1 in 5 Canadian students use vaping products at least once a week (and 1 in 8 uses them every day).

Health Canada generally groups results into two age groups, but the PUMF file allows for a review of substance use in each grade. Because substance use progresses over time and because younger children are less likely to use substances, grouping produces underestimates of the drug use by students at the end of their school years. The PUMF file, however, allows this estimate to be shown. 

High school students living in rural areas are heavier vapers.

Most students surveyed (82%) were identified as attending a school in an urban area, using Statistics Canada's definitions. Proportionately more students in rural schools reported using e-cigarettes daily. 

According to this survey, although only one-fifth (18%) of students are in rural schools, one-third (34%) of youth who vape daily attend rural schools. Although a similar pattern was seen with respect to cigarette smoking, the very low rates of daily smoking (1.5% overall) make the presentation of data without statistical tests less appropriate. 

"White" and "Aboriginal" high schoolers are heavier vapers.

The survey asked students "How would you describe yourself?" The results were grouped into 8 categories: "white", "black", "West Asian/Arab", "South Asian/Indian", East/Southeast Asian (Chinese ...)", "Latin American/Hispanic", "Aboriginal (First Nations, Métis, Inuit..)" and "Another race/Multiple."

More than half (57%) of students identified themselves as "white", with no other ethnic category composing more than 7% of responses. Three percent of students identified themselves as aboriginal.  

"White" and "Aboriginal" students were disproportionately represented among those who vaped on a daily or weekly basis (70% and 5% respectively).  

Tobacco taxes go up today .... by 15 cents per package

Federal tobacco taxes are subject to an annual inflation adjustment, which is implemented on April 1 of each year. The adjustment for 2024 brings the federal tax on a carton of cigarettes to $33.15 (or $0.17 per cigarette). The federal government also charges 5% GST on tobacco products

Each province also applies taxes to tobacco, and most also charge provincial sales tax. Because of provincial differences in tobacco taxation, the taxes on a package of cigarettes range by about $4.50 across the country. Most Canadians live in Quebec and Ontario, which have the lowest rates of taxation.

No Canadian jurisdiction imposes price controls on Canadian cigarettes, and manufacturers are allowed to set their wholesale prices at different amounts for different retailers. On the image below (and the downloadable data sheet), data is presented for the impact of taxation on a package of cigarettes which wholesales for $4.41 and for which the retail markup is set at 10% of the wholesale price and excise taxes.

Canada's tobacco taxes fall short of the World Health Organization recommendations

The WHO recommends that taxes make up 75% of the price of cigarettes. This standard will be met in some provinces for the least expensive brands, but overall the WHO considers that Canada falls well short of this mark. 

In the 2023 WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, tobacco taxes in Canada were estimated at 63.3% of the retail price (p. 136). More than 40 countries meet the the 75% "best practice" standard for taxation - including most Western European countries and Australia and New Zealand.  

From the 2023 WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic,

Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health calls for better controls on tobacco and nicotine.

This post highlights an important report from the senior public health officer in Canada's largest province. 

In "Balancing Act: An All-of-Society Approach to Substance Use and Harms", Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, focuses on Ontario's experience with substance use. He provides specific recommendations on four categories of substances: tobacco-vaping products, cannabis, alcohol and opioids.

The analysis and recommendations in this 81-page report do not reflect the policy of the current Government of Ontario. Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health has a duty to provide the legislature with an independent annual "on the state of public health in Ontario." In recent years these reports have focused on specific public health issues - last year's report focused on pandemic preparedness.

Dr. Moore's 2024 report provides a comprehensive review of the impact of both legal drugs (nicotine, cannabis, alcohol) and illicit drugs (opioids), and addresses upstream and downstream factors which influence use and harmful use.

As the title "Balancing Act" suggests, the report identifies the forces and tensions which influence public policy in these areas -- respect for individual autonomy with respect to substance use, community protection, economic benefits and harms, reducing harm without increasing use, etc.

The recommendations which flow from this analysis challenge many current policies and practices of both the Ontario and Federal government. (Not only did the Ontario government quickly distance itself from his recommendations, it chose to release the report on the Friday afternoon of a long weekend.)

With respect to tobacco and nicotine - an area largely abandoned by Ontario's Conservative government after its election in 2019 - Dr. Moore offers little support for federal government's harm reduction approach. Dr. Moore casts doubt on the potential for vaping products to assist with smoking cessation when sold as consumer products: "Studies comparing nicotine e-cigarettes to usual care/no treatment suggest only a small benefit, and the long term (i.e. longer than two years) benefits and harms of e-cigarette use are largely unknown due to short follow-up of current studies. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that “any government pursuing a smoking cessation strategy utilizing e-cigarettes should control the conditions under which the products are accessed to ensure appropriate clinical conditions and regulate the products as medicines."

The report's approach to vaping and nicotine do align, however, with that made earlier by Dr. Moore's provincial and federal colleagues, who provided guidance on vaping policies collectively as Canadian Chief Medical Officers of Health. This Ontario report is also consistent with the advice of Canadian health agencies and with the World Health Organization. 

For example, Dr. Moore's report casts doubt on the potential for vaping products to assist with smoking cessation when sold as consumer products:  "Studies comparing nicotine e-cigarettes to usual care/no treatment suggest only a small benefit, and the long term (i.e. longer than two years) benefits and harms of e-cigarette use are largely unknown due to short follow-up of current studies. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that “any government pursuing a smoking cessation strategy utilizing e-cigarettes should control the conditions under which the products are accessed to ensure appropriate clinical conditions and regulate the products as medicines."

Instead, Dr. Moore uses the report to call for stronger controls on nicotine products (including nicotine pouches): "Ontario still falls short of many of the World Health Organization recommendations to protect children, including banning flavours as well as any features that could appeal to youth." His specific recommendations for tobacco-and nicotine policies and programs are listed verbatim below. 

Dr. Moore's advice is good for Ontario, and would be good for the rest of the country too. 

More than 2 decades have passed since Canada had a national vision for tobacco control. The last pan-Canadian strategy (the National Strategy to Reduce Tobacco Use (NSTRTU)) was drafted by a steering committee composed of provincial and federal governments representatives as well as those from civil society.

Canada's national approach to tobacco control was abandoned in 2001 when the federal government stepped away and established its own approach. The Federal Tobacco Control Strategy (FTCS) modified the NSTRTU framework (Prevention, Protection, Cessation, Denormalization) to drop Denormalization and to replace it with the goal of Harm Reduction. Some provincial governments have subsequently adopted their own strategies, but most of these have languished without renewal in recent years. None have formally adopted harm reduction as a tobacco control objective.

Dr. Moore's report offers a sensible plan to protect public health from tobacco industry products. It will however take a major change in approach by either the Ontario and Federal government for these measures to be put in place.

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Recommendations from "Balancing Act: An All-of-Society Approach to Substance Use and Harms" related to Tobacco and Nicotine

Reinvigorate the Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy, focusing on populations and regions with high rates of tobacco use. Expand the strategy to create a comprehensive, coherent public health-oriented framework for regulating vaping and all nicotine-containing products. 

Targets 

• Adopt Health Canada’s target of less than 5% tobacco use by 2035 

• Develop aggressive targets to prevent the use of vaping products by youth and people who do not smoke 

Health Promotion 

• Continue to raise awareness among Ontarians, particularly youth, of the risks associated with tobacco and vaping products 

Regulatory Measures 

Minimum legal age of purchase 

• Increase the minimum legal age to purchase tobacco and vaping products from 19 to 21 years old 

• Consider progressively increasing the minimum legal age to purchase these products over time as a way to ban the purchase of these products by future generations 

Product Controls 

• Ban flavours for all tobacco and vaping products 

• Expand restrictions on where people can smoke or vape (i.e. not in social housing, near building entrances, exits and air intakes, in all outdoor spectator stands, beaches, and specified parts of provincial parks) 

• Require apartment landlords and condominium boards to have a smoking/vaping policy 

• Ban the use of water pipes in all places where smoking is banned 

• Expand the current regulatory framework to include specified non-tobacco nicotine products, such as nicotine pouches, and prevent their sale and promotion to youth and people who do not smoke 

• Ban the sale of disposable vaping products 

• Establish product controls to prevent the evolving risk of vaping devices being used to deliver other drugs, such as cannabis, fentanyl, and crystal methamphetamine.

Availability 

• Restrict physical store locations where tobacco and vaping products can be sold, including prohibiting any new stores within 200 metres of an elementary or secondary school or an existing tobacco/vaping retail outlet, and capping the total number of retail locations in a municipality/region (i.e. retail density)

• Impose a licensing fee for retailers of tobacco and vaping products 

• Explore measures to reduce illegal, untaxed tobacco sales outside of First Nations communities 

• Work with the federal government to ban online retail sales of tobacco and vaping products without in person age verification at delivery 

Pricing and Taxation 

• Increase the provincial sales tax on tobacco products and increase the tax each year to keep pace with inflation 

• Maintain provincial sales tax on vaping, and increase annually to keep pace with inflation 

Promotion 

• Work with the federal government to restrict:

   o online and social media advertising of tobacco and vaping products 

   o the design, appearance, and branding of e-cigarettes to reduce their appeal to youth 

• Reduce or eliminate the number of price signs allowed in tobacco and vaping retail settings visible to youth 

• Prohibit manufacturers from offering incentives to retailers (e.g. bonuses for reaching sales volume targets, chances to win vacations or entertainment tickets, lower prices based on volumes purchased), and prohibit retailers from passing incentives on to consumers 

Enforcement 

• Issue time-limited suspensions for retail outlets that repeatedly sell vaping products to minors, as is done for tobacco 

• Enforce the current limitations on nicotine concentration in vaping products (20 mg/ml), determine whether companies are using product strategies to undermine the 20 mg/ml standard, and restrict the capacity of tanks, pods and refill containers 

Treatment 

• Increase access, including free products, to evidence-based smoking cessation therapies and supports, such as the Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation 

• Increase research and training on vaping cessation therapies and supports for youth and adults

Monitoring and Reporting 

• Establish key performance indicators for public health inspectors and others involved in enforcing tobacco and vaping policies designed to protect minors and non-smokers 

• Work with Public Health Ontario and with federal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners to continue to: 

   o Monitor the impact of tobacco and vaping on health 

   o Review new evidence on vaping and other non-tobacco nicotine use 

   o Assess the impact/effectiveness of tobacco and vaping policies 

   o Issue regular public reports on Ontario’s progress (key performance indicators) in reducing harms associated with tobacco and vaping use

More countries move to ban flavours and disposable vapes

This post provides an update on recent actions taken by health authorities outside Canada to address nicotine use by youth.

Flavour bans

The number of countries which have banned all flavours (other than tobacco flavour) in vaping products grew to 7 in January, when Latvia finalized its law to that effect. As with the Netherlands and China, Latvia restricts tobacco flavourings to a "white list" of permitted ingredients. The Latvian restriction comes into effect on August 1, 2024. 

Australia, which does not permit the sale of vaping products except under prescription, placed restrictions on the flavours for which prescriptions can be issued: only tobacco-flavour, mint and menthol are permitted. This measure took effect at the beginning of March. (Australia does not currently ban menthol in cigarettes).

A description of international flavour restrictions can be downloaded here. 

A list of health organizations calling for flavour restrictions can be downloaded here. 

 

Banning disposable vapes

At the beginning of 2024 only two countries which otherwise permitted e-cigarette sales banned the sale of disposable vaping products: New Caledonia and Australia. 

Over the past two weeks it has become clear that the number of countries in which disposable e-cigarettes will not be permitted will grow.  

• This week the Belgian Health Minister announced that its proposed ban, which had been suspended during a review by the European Commission, was back on track for implementation at the beginning of 2025. 
• Also this week, France formally notified the EU that it will ban these products.  The legislation currently suggests this will take place in September 2024. 
• Also this week, the Polish Minister of Health disclosed that she had received permission from the Prime Minister to introduce legislation to ban disposable e-cigarettes. 
• Last Friday, the New Zealand Associate Minister of Health announced that a law to ban disposable vaping products (and impose other controls) would be introduced.

These new announcements are in addition to proposals earlier this year by authorities in Scotland (draft regulations) and England (announced but not specified in subsequently-tabled legislation)

In early March 2024, seven European organizations with responsibility for waste management called for a ban on disposable cigarettes "by the end of 2024 at the very least."

A chronology of recent regulatory actions on vaping products can be downloaded here. 

Stop Smoking medications authorized in Canada include 4 manufactured by tobacco-nicotine companies

Three months have now passed since federal Health Minister Mark Holland told reporters that he wanted to "shut down the loophole" that resulted in Imperial Tobacco being granted authorization by the department to market Zonnic nicotine pouches. 

CBC reporter Marina von Stackelberg reported on November 30th that "When asked how Health Canada failed to anticipate that risk, Holland said he takes 'responsibility for that' and vowed to take a "rigorous look" at the processes for approving nicotine products."

This post post presents information on stop-smoking products which have been authorized for sale by Health Canada. 

The loophole the Minister is trying to close and the process for approving nicotine products is not limited to Zonnic, manufactured by a subsidiary of British American Tobacco.  

Health Canada has also given permission to other tobacco-nicotine companies to sell nicotine products as stop smoking medication, allowing them to avoid the more restrictive rules placed on their other nicotine products. These authorizations include:

* Rogue nicotine gum manufactured by a subsidiary of the cigar-manufacturer Swisher.
* Sesh+/Lucy nicotine gum manufactured by nicotine gum and pouch company Lucy Goods
* Quit (TM) gum manufactured by Fertin Pharma, a subsidiary of Philip Morris International.

A list of stop-smoking products authorized by Health Canada can be downloaded here.

Canada's two-track system for stop-smoking medicines

Health Canada's regulation of drug products is managed under the authority of the Food and Drugs Act, with specific reliance on the regulations under that act. In the case of stop-smoking medications, two distinct regulatory systems are involved.

Track 1: Pharmaceutical and Over the Counter Drugs. 

The Food and Drug Regulations set the parameters for the sale of prescription and non-prescription drugs, including the issuance of Drug Identification Numbers (DIN) to authorized products, the licensing of manufacturers, and restrictions on advertising. Medications containing nicotine are considered prescription drugs, unless they meet certain criteria for dosage levels and modes of delivery, in which case they are regulated as  Natural Health Products. 

The stop-smoking medications that are regulated as Drugs and managed under the Food and Drug regulations are Varenicline and Bupropion. Five manufacturers are authorized to sell varenicline in Canada, one of which (Pfizer's Champix) is currently not for sale. Health Canada identifies that 5 authorized manufacturers currently sell bupropion.

Track 2: Natural Health Products

The Natural Health Products (NHP) Regulations set the parameters for the sale of health products made from plant or plant material or extracts other than those in categories which are excluded (cannabis, opioids). These products cannot be sold unless than have been authorized and assigned a Natural Health Product Number (NPN). The regulations governing application for authorization, advertisements and manufacture are different (and have been found less stringent) for Natural Health Products than they are for Drugs. 

There are currently almost 100 authorizations issued by Health Canada for Natural Health Products sold as a way to help smokers quit. 

- Stop smoking products made by Consumer healthcare companies

The NHP regulations were adopted in 2003. Before they were in place, nicotine gum and nicotine patch were regulated as drugs, and were initially sold on a prescription basis. Many mainstream consumer healthcare companies (e.g. Kenvue, Haleon) are authorized to sell NRT in Canada, as are generic drug companies (e.g. Teva, CellChem).    

Health Canada has authorized many pharmaceutical
companies to sell nicotine replacement products

Beginning in 2016, Health Canada has authorized 5 manufacturers to sell Cytisine (Baptitoxine), of which at least 2 are currently for sale in Canada (CRAVV and Tobalief)

Two authorized cytisine products
are now marketed in Canada

- Stop smoking products made by Alternative medicine suppliers

Health Canada has authorized the sale of stop-smoking aids for which the evidence of effectiveness is quite small. These include include a homeopathic remedy and herbal medications made from Lobelia plants or from other combinations.

Herbal remedies authorized by Health Canada 
for sale as stop-smoking aids. 

- Stop smoking products made by Tobacco and nicotine manufacturers

Health Canada has also authorized companies which normally sell nicotine as a consumer/recreational drug to also sell it as a medication to address the addiction caused by their primary business activity.

In addition to authorizing Zonnic (sold by Imperial Tobacco Canada / British American Tobacco), Health Canada has also given permission to three other recreational drug manufacturers to sell nicotine as Natural Health Products. 

The first of these was the 2021 authorization to Lucy Goods for the sale of Lucy and Sesh+ nicotine gum in Canada. Just over a year ago, Lucy gum was introduced to the Canadian market, quickly raising concerns about the manner in which it was being sold.

Since then authorization to sell NRT has also been given to ReCreation Marketing, a subsidiary of Turning Point Brands whose mainline business is smoking accessories like Zig Zag papers and cannabis pipes. Its Solace and Fre brands are not yet for sale in Canada, although they are currently sold in the United States.

Rogue Holdings is another company that has been given permission to sell nicotine lozenge and gum. Rogue is a subsidiary of Swisher Brands, whose main activity is the manufacture of cigars. Rogue nicotine gum and lozenge are currently for sale in the USA, but do not seem to be yet sold in Canada. 

Another company authorized to sell NRT in Canada is Philip Morris International (PMI). In 2021, PMI acquired Fertin Pharma, which had previously been authorized to sell nicotine gum in Canada.

Rogue and Solace are not yet sold in Canada
(product illustrations from USA)

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Health Canada makes available the list of substances for which a prescription is required, the drugs that have been authorized for sale in Canada and also authorized natural health products. A consolidated list of these products is available here.

Are e-cigarettes safer than regular cigarettes? 107 studies are compiled to provide a disturbing answer.

This post reports on a new study which calculates the risks of using e-cigarettes in comparison with those of using cigarettes alone, or using both e-cigarettes and cigarettes, or using neither. The study was published today in the digital journal NEJM Evidence: Population-Based Disease Odds for E-Cigarettes and Dual Use versus Cigarettes.

The lead author of this systematic review and meta-analysis is Dr. Stan Glantz, who is well known for his pioneering tobacco control research. Co-authors are Dr. Nhung Nguyen, an epidemiologist specializing in substance use and Dr. Andre Luiz Oliveira da Silva, whose experience in tobacco regulatory science includes work with the Brazilian government health agency ANVISA. (Dr. Glantz provides more information on the study here.)

Their review looked for all population epidemiological studies published between January 2005 and October 1 2023 that reported on experience of disease in the general population by e-cigarette users. In that sense, this paper is the contribution of the authors of 107 studies aimed at building the epidemiological evidence base on e-cigarettes.

The results published today are in stark contrast to previously published estimates of relative risk (see below) and call into question the view of the government of Canada and others whose policy objective is to achieve population level health benefits by encouraging smokers to switch to e-cigarettes.

The meta-analysis was restricted to disease categories for which at least 5 previous papers had been published. There were six such conditions: cardiovascular disease, stroke, metabolic dysfunction asthma, COPD and oral disease. Other diseases (including cancer) did not meet this criteria.

The results of this study: 

* do not support the conclusion that smokers who switch completely to e-cigarettes are less likely to experience cardiovascular disease, stroke and metabolic dysfunction.

* support the conclusion that vapers who do not smoke are more likely to experience cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, asthma, COPD and oral disease than are those who neither smoke nor vape.

* support the conclusion that dual users (those who smoke and vape) have 20-40% higher odds of experiencing cardiovascular disease, stroke, metabolic dysfunction, asthma, COPD and oral disease than if they only smoked. 

The importance of this paper to tobacco control

This paper challenges previous conclusions that e-cigarettes produce meaningfully lower risks to the user than cigarettes, and counters beliefs that encouraging smokers to switch to e-cigarettes reduce population-level harm.

It suggests that the relative risks associated with vaping have been seriously understated:

* In 2015,  British researchers recommended that governments consider e-cigarettes to be "95% less harmful" than combustible cigarettes. This assessment was not based on data, but on the opinion of a small group of researchers, some of whom were associated with the vaping industry. 

* In 2023, American health economists assumed that the risk of dying from vaping is 15% that of smoking when building a simulation model for health outcomes. 
* In 2022, New Zealand researchers used studies on biomarkers to estimate that "vaping could be a third as harmful to health as smoking", although they rescinded (corrected) that conclusion a year later with the admission that "data limitations with the selected studies and the assumptions involved in our method, are too problematic to allow for a valid quantitative assessment."

The implications for health policy in Canada

In 2018 Health Canada adopted a harm reduction approach to tobacco centred on smokers' switching to e-cigarettes. Six years later, their stated intention remained to "increase the number of people who transition away from smoking (to vaping)".  

Official statements by the Government of Canada on the risks of vaping are mostly vague with respect to diseases other than addiction, with an overarching message that they are "not completely harmless". Not only do federal government communications fail to specify any diseases likely caused by e-cigarettes, they further blunt their warnings by simultaneously recommending that smokers switch to e-cigarettes.

Health Canada's advice on the risks of vaping

The department has acknowledged that this approach was developed with "limited scientific evidence and much uncertainty" and that that "this lack of evidence persists". (It has recently provided $1.2 million to CAMH to conduct an evidence review). 

Uncertainty should no longer be used as a cover for Canada's harm reduction strategy.  Canada's health policies should no longer assume that smokers who switch to e-cigarettes are likely to improve their health, given the greater likelihood that they will become dual users. The government should abandon its "balanced" approach which tolerates exposing young people and non-smokers to inducements to try vaping in the (unsupported) hopes that such marketing will result in substantial population health benefits.

Applying the disease odds published today to the situation in Canada suggests that vaping policies in this country have not reduced harm, but have instead increased it. Only a small proportion of e-cigarette users in Canada are former smokers (27%), with a much larger share being dual users (34%) or never smokers (40%). (CTNS 2023).

An appropriate response to the evidence published today would be for Canadian governments to move quickly to ban inducements to vape (flavours, package designs, promotions and pricing incentives), to increase risk communication (mass media, warning labels), to curb supply and to hold manufacturers responsible for the harms their products are causing.   

Cannabis, caffeine and chocolate -- BAT's expanding footprint in Canada

BAT presentation 2021 showing
three areas of focus

Four years have now passed since British American Tobacco revamped its branding and proclaimed a "better tomorrow" business plan focused on new nicotine delivery systems, and three years since it announced that it was going "beyond nicotine" to sell other psychoactive substances ("On the go wellbeing and stimulation").

The release earlier this month of BAT's most recent annual report provides an update these activities. This post reports on those which  have particular relevance to Canada.

BAT adds cannabis to its business plan

BAT has added a fourth product category of activity. To the three areas identified in 2021 (Tobacco, New Nicotine and Beyond nicotine wellbeing and stimulation) it has now added a fourth drug - cannabis - to its strategy for "Quality Growth". 

The company notes that revenues from the global legal market for cannabis have doubled from £5.2 billion in 2019 to £11.1 billion in 2022. In this year's annual report the company boasts that cannabis is "an exciting potential category for the future".

BAT Combined Annual and Sustainability Report for 2023

Coming soon: "disruptive inhalation formats" for cannabis 

Canada is a proving ground for BAT's entry into cannabis. The tobacco giant now owns 45% of Organigram. Based in New Brunswick, Organigram is one of the larger cannabis manufacturers in Canada and sell a range of combustible, edible and vaporized products.

Organigram reports that its partnership with BAT is aimed at "innovative technologies in the edible, vape and beverage categories in addition to new disruptive inhalation formats"  BAT reports that its collaboration with Organigram "is in late-stage development of a suite of emulsions, novel vapour formulations, flavour innovations and packaging solutions which are soon to be commercialised by Organigram in the Canadian market."

Organigram Investor Presentation 2024

Water soluble cannabis for beverages and cosmetics

Organigram is not the only cannabis-related investment of BAT in Canada. Through its venture capital arm, BtomorrowVentures, BAT is funding the development of water-soluble cannabis by the Vancouver-based company Trait.  This technology is promoted as a way to infuse cosmetics and to increase the dosage of cannabinoids in beverages. In October 2023 Traitbio posted:

“The collaboration between Btomorrow Ventures and Gotham Green Partners, in particular, has been a powerful catalyst in advancing Trait’s development and commercialization activities,” says Hanny Kanafani, PhD, President and COO at Trait, “thereby enabling the launch of unique first-generation cannabinoids which, when added to waters/beverages, maintain beverage clarity and do not impart turbidity, even when added at competitive dosages.

“When added into cosmetic applications, Trait’s water-soluble materials do not require additives typically used in skincare products to maintain quality; and opens the door for unique and differentiated infused cosmetic applications.”

British American Tobacco and the candy counter

Awake chocolate manufactures caffeinated chocolate under the eponymous brand name ("each bite .... contains as much caffeine as a half a cup of joe!". It also makes chocolate designed to help people relax ("mello milk and dark chocolate bites are the perfect way to wind down. Infused with a natural botanical blend of lemon balm and L-Theanine, our delicious chocolate promotes relaxation without drowsiness.")

The company is privately owned and is based in Mississauga. British American Tobacco first invested in Awake in 2021 and increased its financing again in 2023. 

Although Mello 'relaxing chocolate' is not currently available, the caffeinated product Awake can be found in convenience and other stores across Canada.