DORIAN GEIGER
Opinions Writer

    Tobacco tax, a ban on smoking indoors, ad campaigns with grotesque photos of cancer-ridden lungs — the list goes on in the government’s continual efforts to deter smoking.

    The list of such preventive measures grew further on April 6, when the government of Canada banned certain flavoured tobacco products throughout the country.

    The legislation’s primary objective is to phase out “little cigars,” or flavoured cigarillos, but it will also prohibit venders from selling individually packaged cigarillos including such brands as Prime Times, Happy Hour and Bulls Eye. The new law falls under Bill C-32 and is entitled the Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act. 

    The legislation only affects products classified as “little cigars,” meaning cigarillos that weigh 1.4 grams or less and have a cigarette-style filter and that are sold individually. Packs of such cigarillos will be phased out on July 5.

   Apparently, the fat-cats on Parliament Hill are worried that the many enticing flavours cigarillos offer — raspberry, piña colada, peach, grape and tangerine, to name a few — are dangerously appealing to children, especially when they’re packaged and sold as convenient and affordable single cartridges for around a toonie.
As the government sees it, that cancer stick is just a heist from mom’s change-purse away.

    It is a pretty well-established fact that smoking is detrimental to one’s health. It causes cancer, it’s more addictive than heroin or cocaine and it kills more people each year than traffic accidents and AIDS. But some digging into the government’s motives for this most recent initiative leaves one uneasy. There’s just something unsettling about the government regulating what we can and cannot consume, leaving the public to ask, “What’s next?”

    By this logic, the government should ban anything that’s bad for your health and flavoured — from coffee to jelly-filled doughnuts.

    Human beings have been adding flavour additives to products they’ve consumed for centuries and despite the boogie man the government makes the tobacco industry out to be, flavoured cigarillos are not some new, sinister approach to marketing.

    A blog on BarelyLegal.ca perhaps best highlights the gross misconceptions contained within Bill C-32.

“Teenagers aren’t smoking flavoured cigarillos because they find bright colors irresistible,” reads the blog. “As under-aged as they are, they’re thinking human beings, with their own preferences, prejudices, and personalities. They are not a flock of Toucans foraging for tropical fruit.”

    Another major problem in this rushed legislation lies in its curtailing of individually packaged cigarillos. Single cigarillos are a popular mode of cutting back from tobacco or quitting altogether, especially for those who are not able to afford an entire pack at once.

Seasoned smokers aren’t just going to quit — they will find substitutions to get their fix — and the same applies to teenagers.

    After the new law comes into effect, smokers will still be able to purchase some flavoured cigarillos such as plastic-filtered Colts or Captain Blacks which are marketed under broad flavours like “sweet” or “mild.” However, such cigarillos will be required to be sold in 20-packs after July 8.

– –
photo: Dorian Geiger