SMOKING BAN EYED FOR MANY HOMES
Plan also calls for no tobacco sales to under-21s
The federal government is proposing to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes to 21 and ban smoking on college campuses and inside condo and apartment buildings as part of a new drive to dramatically curb smoking rates.
The ideas are floated for discussion in a Health Canada paper that says the government wants to see smoking reduced to less than five per cent of the population by 2035 — a reduction of about two million people.
The current rate, based on a 2015 survey, is pegged at 13 per cent.
The consultation document also gives a cautious nod to t he potential of vaping and new “heat-not-burn” cigarettes to reduce the harm of smoking, despite many public- health groups opposing the technologies.
The paper is being quietly distributed by the department as it develops a new national tobacco- control strategy.
“The government … is committed to charting a new course in tobacco control that seeks to radically reduce the unacceptable burden inflicted on our society by tobacco use,” says the document.
One leading anti-smoking advocate says he is “delighted” to see Health Canada setting an aggressive target for reducing smoking, but disappointed it seems to have few concrete policy options in mind.
“I would have liked to see that ( five- per- cent goal) backed up with some indication that the government actually had a plan to achieve it, and was willing to be held accountable for achieving milestones along the way,” said Neil Collishaw, research director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada.
“We’ve had consultation on consultation on consultation and we still don’t have a renewed strategy.”
He advocates more substantive policies, like regulations that prod the industry to move away from conventional cigarettes and policies to combat discount pricing of some cigarette brands, a trend he says is blunting the anti- smoking effects of high tobacco taxes.
Collishaw questioned the practicality of banning smoking in multi-unit buildings.
“To what extent can you control what people do in their own homes?” Collishaw asked.
But Sheila MacDonald, a Cornwall, Ont., resident, applauded the suggestion, saying that she was made miserable by cigarette smoke that seeped into her unit from a neighbouring one, exacerbating her allergies.
“We could not use one of our bathrooms, and our clothes dryer held the smoke from the ventilation,” she said.
The current national tobacco- control strategy, a set of policies and related funding, is set to expire in March 2018.
Health Canada is inviting input on the shape of a new one.
One of the most striking ideas it suggests is working with provinces to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes — now at 18 or 19 — to 21, meaning Canadians could legally drink before they could purchase tobacco.
Such a change would have to be implemented in careful consideration of the age of access to marijuana, says the paper. The government plans to legalize recreational use of cannabis.
It also suggests bringing in regulations requiring tobacco products be less addictive. The department issued a tender last year calling for research on such a change, seemingly based on evidence that tobacco can be bred to produced reduced nicotine levels. It’s a controversial idea that has not been tried elsewhere.
The paper goes on to propose a broad expansion in the type of spaces where smoking — and vaping — would be prohibited. Bans could be extended to public parks, post- secondary campuses and multi- unit housing, says Health Canada.
The document says the government is also considering “whether and how” it should encourage smokers to switch to e- cigarettes, adding that health authorities in the United Kingdom are already pushing that idea.
And it notes the tobacco i ndustry has developed products that heat but do not produce smoke from tobacco, which the companies say curbs the habit’s toxic effects. Those claims have yet to be independently verified, said the document.
It’s positive that Health Canada is at least open to the possibility of such devices, in contrast to the blanket opposition of U. S. authorities, said David Sweanor, an Ottawa lawyer, anti- smoking crusader and staunch advocate of vaping as a harm- reduction tool.
But he decried the document’s tepid statements that such technology might help reduce tobacco- related illness.
“That is right up there with ‘It is likely less harmful if I take the stairs rather than jump off my third- floor terrace,’” said Sweanor. “It’s almost certain to be massively less harmful … We’re sitting on the possibility of something really, really significant here — if we grasp it.”