Journal-Pioneer (Summerside) - November 29, 2011
The Guardian (Charlottetown)
By Colin Kenny
Nobody should celebrate victory before it’s been won, but there is cause for cheer on the tobacco front. While it is far too early to proclaim victory in Canada’s efforts to combat smoking addiction, I think we can throw a little confetti in the air before redoubling our efforts.
A lot of Canadians – including those who have managed to quit the habit – must have felt pretty darned good when the word came out last month that Canada’s smoking rate plummeted to 17 percent in 2010 from 25 percent in 1999.
Most importantly, the rate is down to 12 percent for teenagers 15-19. Playing chicken with addiction is obviously no longer as cool as it was in 1999, when 28 percent of Canadian teenagers smoked.
To move so quickly from an era in which 3 out of 10 kids smoked to an era in which 1 out of 10 smoke is more than an evolution: we’ve got a revolution in the works.
Beyond paying tribute to the kids themselves, Canadians should thank Canada’s hard-working health community as well as governments that got on board after years of neglecting one of our country’s highest-ranking problems.
National organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society, the Lung Association, , the Non-Smokers Rights Association, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Coalition Québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac, and the Canadian Council for Tobacco Control have been joined by regional and provincial associations and municipal boards of health across Canada in a relentless effort to convince governments and the public of the personal and social damage caused by smoking.
More work needs to be done if the trend is to continue to improve. There obviously needs to be greater focus on the North. The smoking rate in Yukon and the Northwest Territories is 35.7 percent, and in Nunavut, a staggering 61.3 percent.
It is imperative that the federal government resist the temptation to cut back on anti-smoking funding as part of its budgetary restraint program. In 2000 its Liberal predecessors were spending a paltry $20 million a year on an epidemic that is responsible for about $3 billion in health care costs annually.
The Liberals smartened up. Intense lobbying at the beginning of this decade pushed federal anti-smoking spending up to $97 million in 2004. It has since been whittled back to $60 million a year.
When it comes to smoking cessation programs that will reduce health care costs by hundreds of millions of dollars down the road, our political leaders need to do the right thing – both for the health of Canadians and the deficit. They need to invest in prevention and cessation now more than ever. These expenditures will pay for themselves many times over.
Relatively minor investments now will provide significant health care savings within a decade. What better deal can a government get than saving taxpayers’ money and saving smokers or would-be smokers from the likelihood of lousy health and an early grave?
To do that, the government needs to win still more hearts and minds. We’re on the right track. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that nearly all of us worked in smoke-filled rooms.
Tens of thousands of Canadians are fighting hard to quit a dirty habit. Their government has an obligation not to quit on them, or all those kids waiting in the wings.
Those kids are ripe for seduction, unless we continue to get inside their heads about how uncool it really is to stink like cigarettes all your life, then die before your time.
(Senator Kenny first became involved in anti-tobacco over a decade ago. He wrote and sponsored bills S-13, S-20, The Tobacco Youth Protection Act & S-15 the Tobacco Industry Responsibility Act. kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca)