To the readers and contributors of the AACV Coalition, the CFAA, and the AB Choice Vaping Alliance: this is a reply, not a fight.
Yes to the parts that are right
You are right that enforcement of the existing rules matters. You are right that illicit-channel risk has to be planned for. You are right that adult consumers in Alberta exist, do use legal nicotine products, and do have a place in the conversation. None of that is in dispute on our side.
And then
And then, when you have said all of that, our kids are still bringing devices home that look nothing like cigarettes, taste like dessert, and were not sold to them by a licensed Alberta retailer. That part of the file does not go away because the licensed retail counter is well-run.
What we are asking for
What we are asking MLAs to do is straightforward and we have written it down in our letter to MLAs. Pass Bill 208, fund the enforcement of the rules under it, and publish a short, public review in three years so this Assembly can see what worked. That is not a slogan and it is not a takedown of adult consumers.
One ask of the adult-access sites
Where adult-access materials raise the liquor comparison or argue for proportionality, we ask one thing in return: please address the school hallway directly, not by analogy. Tell us how an adult-access framework, on its own, gets the device out of the backpack. If it does not, that is fine, but say so. That is the part of the file we live with.
Tone
We will keep our materials plain. Our writers do not have a press office or a comms budget. We do have classroom experience and a working memory of last term's vape detector procurement. We will write from there.