Tobacco control – what we’re fighting for right now

Bill C-32 made important progress by banning flavoured cigarettes, blunt wraps and little cigars as of July 2010. But menthol cigarettes and many flavoured tobacco products remain on the market. Water pipe tobacco (also known as shisha or hookah), smokeless tobacco and bidis are available in fruit and candy flavours. These products strongly appeal to youth and young adults. Health Minister Rona Ambrose should bring forward a regulation to ban all flavoured tobacco products –as Brazil has done, effective September 2013.

As of June, 2012, a new series of picture health warnings were required to cover 75% of the package front and back for cigarettes and some little cigars. Canada’s new warnings are among the best in the world but many product categories are not covered by these regulations. As a next step, Health Minister Ambrose should renew warnings for all other tobacco products. Warnings for roll-your-own tobacco, smokeless tobacco, cigars and pipe tobacco have not been changed since 2001. Well-designed health warnings are effective at increasing awareness and decreasing tobacco use.

Tobacco companies have used product packaging as an effective marketing strategy to depict positive lifestyle images, convey deceptive messages and detract from health warnings. The Society has long called for plain packaging to end the use of packaging as a promotional tool. Health Minister Ambrose should take steps to implement plain packaging. Australia became the first country to implement plain packaging as of December, 2012

Increasing the price of cigarettes is one of the most effective ways to encourage smokers to quit and to prevent youth from starting to use tobacco. A price increase of 10% will generally result in a decrease in consumption of 4%. Federal tobacco taxes have not increased since 2002, meaning that real tobacco tax rates have in effect decreased due to inflation. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty should start to increase tobacco taxes, following the lead of all provinces.