Canada: Quebec Smokers Haven''t been Butting out

Source from:  CJAD 800 AM (ca)  06/21/2013

Anti-smoking activists say it is a public health catastrophe that Quebec's smoking rate has barely budged since 2003, despite the multiple restrictions placed on smoking over the past decade.

New figures from Statistics Canada show the rate sits at 23.8 per cent— well above the national rate of 20 per cent.

The Quebec rate, in fact, has remained stable since 2005 — the year before smoking was banned in Quebec's bars and restaurants.

Flory Doucas, with the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, says a stable smoking rate shows the tobacco industry continues to create one new smoker to replace each smoker who dies.

"Since the last law had been updated in 2005, the industry has put on the market lots of new products, including all the flavored cigars and extremely attractive packaging," Doucas says. "So it's not surprising to see that for those smokers who manage to quit, and who, unfortunately, die prematurely, new smokers are replacing them."

She says governments need to go further to reduce the attraction of smoking, particularly among young people. Doucas says there needs to be a ban on all flavored cigarettes -- including menthol cigarettes — and, on all new tobacco products.

Doucas also would like to see governments follow Australia's lead, and introduce plain packaging for cigarettes, with the brand name written on the bottom of the pack in a plain font, with no colors, so that "it looks like the deadly product that it is." Enditem