Canada: Anti-tobacco Strategy Announced by Alberta Government

Source from:  Edmonton Journal  11/21/2012

Sales of addictive cherry, grape and peach flavoured spit tobacco, marketed specially to teenagers, would be restricted and possibly banned under a new 10-year anti-tobacco strategy announced by Health Minister Fred Horne on Monday.

Horne also said he wants to clamp down on tobacco sales to minors, possibly with new provincial rules on the age of clerks who sell tobacco. He will also consider implementing a private member's bill, already passed unanimously in the house, that would ban smoking in cars carrying children.

But there will be no new taxes on tobacco and the proposed new legislation won't be ready until the spring when it will be debated by an all-party committee, he added.

Horne's ambitious plan to reduce tobacco use among youth to six per cent of the population in the next decade, from the current level of 12 per cent, drew applause from cancer groups and anti-smoking activists concerned about "atrocious" marketing of tobacco to teenagers.

Les Hagen, head of Action Against Smoking and Health, said he's "optimistic" that these measures, if implemented, will help protect young people who are specifically targeted by tobacco companies to ensure they have a future market of smokers.

"This atrocious marketing scheme must be stopped," said Hagen, referring to flavoured tobacco.

High school student Jionna Marin from Lloydminster said Alberta is the No. 1 market in Canada for spit tobacco and teenage boys are the big users. "They think it's cool."

But tobacco companies use other marketing techniques, such as selling for a toonie a single flavoured cigarillo in the local convenience store. So kids get hooked on the cheap product as young as middle school. Then they move onto cigarettes when they've got more cash in high school, she added.

In Alberta's prosperous economy, high school students only have to work for half an hour for a packet of for cigarettes, she noted.

Marin also stressed the importance of putting an 18-year age restriction on clerks who sell tobacco products. "If high school teens can buy from their friends (at the local stores), they can get tobacco," she added.

The other attraction of spit tobacco is that there is no restriction on where it can be used, unlike cigarettes which are banned in public places, noted Angelina Webb of the Canadian Cancer Society.

But it is highly addictive and the toxic ingredients get right into the body through saliva, said Webb, noting that lung cancer kills more people than breast cancer, prostate and colorectal cancer combined.

Targeting youth is critical, says Dr. Mark Lavoie, deputy chief medical officer of health in Alberta Health Services.

"Nobody starts to smoke as an adult, so people have to get addicted when they are young and vulnerable, so tobacco companies need teenagers." The AHS budget has $500,000 set aside for the next three years to fund the new strategy, but no figures were available beyond that.

Horne said he anticipates pushback from tobacco companies, adding that he has already talked to some.

Two other provinces have given themselves authority to regulate flavoured tobacco, but none has yet taken that step.

Tobacco taxes were last raised in 2009, but Premier Alison Redford has said there will be no tax increases for the next three years, Horne said. Enditem