Gatan Barrette says e-cigarettes a powerful stop-smoking tool

Quebec Health Minister Gatan Barrette is calling on the federal government to hurry up on its regulation of e-cigarettes.

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He told CBC Daybreak host Mike Finnerty on Wednesday that the provincial government is currently working on a policy about smoking e-cigarettes referred to as vaping in public.

Barrette said he believes e-cigarettes are a powerful tool that can potentially helppeople quit smoking.

"To tell you the truth, I never smoked one cigarette in my life. But what I see on the clinical side, if you let me put on my doctors hat today, is that it really, really works. If you speak with doctors in that field, its what we can call a breakthrough,"Barrette told Daybreak.

He said the psychological aspect of smoking is a big barrier to overcome by those looking to butt out.

Barrette said e-cigarettes duplicate the feeling of smoking a major factor in getting people to quit.

"Reproducing the habit -- the feel, the behaviour that goes with it in a manner that you reduce your nicotine dosages over time it works. And many, many people at the end of the process keep vaping with stuff that has no nicotine," Barrette said.

Health Canada maintainsthere is not enough evidence to prove e-cigarettes are an effective stop-smoking tool.