According to Statistics sa国际传媒, Canadian manufacturers produced about 1.1 billion cigarettes in January, and 1.2 billion in February. That means every year our tobacco-processing industry is supplying more than 12 billion cigarettes to stores across the country.
That’s about 350 cigarettes a year for every man, woman and child in sa国际传媒. These are staggering numbers.
How to make sense of this? Haven’t smoking rates declined in recent years?
Yes they have, but obviously not enough.
About 45,000 Canadians die every year of smoking-related causes, more than twice the annual number of COVID deaths, and nearly one in five of all deaths.
That equates to 600,000 years of life lost annually, primarily due to cancer, heart disease and respiratory disorders.
The impact on our health-care system is profound. Many of these ailments, in particular cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, often require years of treatment.
Nationwide, it’s been estimated that in 2012, the most recent year for which we have statistics, smoking cost our healthcare system $6.5 billion. It’s a certainty that figure has continued to grow, perhaps in the region of $15 billion today.
The question is what, if anything, should we do? Our federal and provincial governments already spend $120 million a year on law enforcement and advertising campaigns to discourage smoking.
Perhaps taxes could be increased. Yet at present the tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes in sa国际传媒 includes $2.91 in federal excise duties, and $6.20 in provincial tobacco taxes, for a total of $9.11. And that’s before federal and provincial sales taxes.
Is there really much room left here, and would a dollar or two more make a difference?
Might tougher measures make sense? In the context of the steps taken to contain the COVID outbreak, some of which were very far-reaching, the answer would seem to be yes. There likely are such options.
From an outright prohibition on the sale of cigarettes, to raising the legal age of smoking from 19 to 21, there are several ways to respond to the damage caused by tobacco products.
However, there are also reasons for caution. The history of banning addictive substances is chequered at best.
Nationwide, the sale of alcohol was prohibited as a temporary wartime measure from 1918 to 1920. Several provinces also enacted bans in the 1920s.
But as also happened in the U.S., prohibition proved impossible to maintain and the bans were soon rescinded. Likewise the war on street drugs has been anything but successful.
It seems probable that a ban on cigarettes would be every bit as difficult to enforce. It would certainly encourage cross-border smuggling.
There is also the fact that by now, anyone who smokes must certainly know of the health risks they take on. If this is a choice they are willing to make, have we the right to deny it?
We don’t ban alcohol, and the health consequences of overconsumption are every bit as severe.
How then could we justify a ban on smoking tobacco?
While there are no easy answers here, the sheer volume of cigarettes being consumed each year does seem to demand a response.
A case can be made that after several decades of campaigns against tobacco use, and the undeniable reduction in smoking rates, we’ve become complacent and perhaps inattentive.
At a minimum, this suggests the need for a renewed focus on this threat to health and well-being. As the COVID outbreak loses strength, now is the time to mount a parallel campaign against cigarette smoking.
For while it may be true that smokers know and accept the risk to personal health they are running, the cost to the health-care system is a price we all must pay.
