Realities of the anti-smoking race

Tobacco is an eccentric consumer product. If it were introduced today as a hot new product, it would never be accepted by regulatory powers.

Yet, through the caprices of history, it is available for sale and lasts to sell remarkably well. About two billion packs of cigs are sold yearly in Canada.

Tobacco possesses by plenty of risks than the majority of other prescriptions or illicit drugs. In fact, it kills much more people than all other drugs combined and is the only drugs which can kill through secondary exposure.

The Tobacco Act restricts advertising, promotion, packaging, ignition propensity, sales to minors and requires producers to prepare plenty of reports right down to the exact content of products.

There exists a provision in the federal Hazardous Products Act that prevents the government from banning tobacco products, as it can do with any other chemical concoction sold to consumers.

Tobacco is the only legal product for which the government’s stated goal is to restrain usage entirely instead of the promotion of safe or responsible use, as it happens with alcohol, fatty foods and vehicles.

At the same time tobacco should not be banned completely.

Approximately 80 per cent of smokers are addicted to nicotine. All smokers would suffer greatly and unjustly from a ban.

Tobacco prohibition would be a gold mine for sellers of contraband cigarettes.Even today, anti-smoking trends concentrate mainly on punishing smokers. They are taxed greatly - including direct taxes on cigs and higher insurance rates - and their capability to smoke is restricted by rules.

As the U.S. Institute of Medicine notifies in a report issued recently it was mistaken to address the addictive aspects of tobacco and constrain manufacturers’ ability to woo more smokers.

The Institute of Medicine said the focus should shift to tobacco manufacturers.

Its most interesting recommendation is that federal health authorities - the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and Health Canada - should regulate cigarettes and tobacco related products as well as the other drugs in order to regulate the level of nicotine in cigarettes - that the amount of nicotine released in each cigarette be fully described on the package, standardized and gradually diminished over time.