Search for a Safe Cigarette The tobacco industry's quest for a "safer" cigarette is filled with promise and pitfalls.
2008
Thursday 02 October 2008 Indian ban on smoking in public
A ban on smoking in public places comes into force across India, in an effort to cut exposure to passive smoking.
Wednesday 13 August 2008 TORONTO: TOBACCO FIRM SUFFERS HUGE LOSS
Tobacco producer Rothmans Inc. reports a loss of $354.4 million in its latest quarter, much of it due to its settlement of criminal charges with the federal government. On July 31, Rothmans Benson & Hedges was fined $100 million for cigarette smuggling between Canada and the U.S., Montreal-based Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. being fined twice that amount. Rothmans Inc. owns 60 per cent of Rothmans Benson & Hedges. Both companies will also pay $815 million to federal and provincial governments over the next 15 years. Simultaneously, Rothman, the country's last independent producer of tobacco products, agreed to a friendly takeover by Philip Morris International Inc. for $2 billion.
Sunday 10 August 2008 Gene hooks smokers at first puff
Puffing on a first cigarette is a rite of passage for many, but whether it is enjoyable may be down to genes, research finds
Thursday 07 August 2008 MEXICO CITY: MINISTER DISAGREES WITH UN ON 'SAFE INJECTION' SITE
Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement has publicly disagreed with the World Health Organization on the question of "safe-injection" sites for users of addictive drugs. The WHO has described places like the "InSite" facility in Vancouver as "priority interventions" to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. Addicts visiting InSite can inject the drugs which they bring there under medical supervision. The arrangement is aimed at preventing needle-sharing by addicts, a practice which spreads transmissible disease. But Mr. Clement says the facility merely encourages people to keep using drugs, describing them as a form of "harm addition." The minister added, however, that Canada is the largest contributor to the WHO and supports harm reduction programs involving rehabilitation.
HAMILTON: ILLEGAL NATIVE CIGARETTE TRADE REPORTED MASSIVE
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reports that it has located almost 30 illegal cigarette factories between southwestern Ontario and Montreal but has been able to shut down only one of them in the past two years. Federal police say the plants are located on the Six Nation and Akwesasne reserves in Ontario and the Kahnawake reserve south of Montreal. An RCMP spokesman told the Canadian Press that the force cannot intervene because "...it's politically sensitive." The Six Nations' own police force says it doesn't intervene because it views the question as a matter not of policing but rather of taxation. The sale of contraband cigarettes costs governments $4 million a day in lost taxes. Smokers can buy unmarked bags of 200 cigarettes sold on reserves for $6, compared with a legally taxes carton of cigarettes that costs $85.
Sunday 03 August 2008 DELHI: TOBACCO FARMERS OFFERED ENTICEMENT TO BE WEANED FROM WEED
The Canadian government is giving farmers more than $300 million to stop growing tobacco. The money is part of a federal strategy to help farmers abandon the tobacco industry. Canada's minister of agriculture, Gerry Ritz, made the announcement in Delhi, ON, a farming town in the heart of Ontario's tobacco-growing region. Mr. Ritz says the money will come from the more than $1-billion fine levied against two of Canada's largest tobacco companies, Imperial Tobacco and Rothman's Benson & Hedges, earlier in the week for tobacco smuggling. Not all the farmers who attended the announcement are happy with the amount of money offered. Many tobacco growers have been seeking close to $1 billion from the government to help them grow other crops.
Friday Aug 1, 2008 Tobacco firms cough up
Imperial Tobacco Canada and Rothmans Inc., Canada's two largest tobacco manufacturers, have pleaded ...
Penalties-lite for errant tobacco companies
Tobacco is a lucrative business, not only for the big cigarette companies and their upstart competitors, but also for the governments that tax the product. All these players do what they can to protect and increase their revenue stream. The difference is that the government gets to make the rules.
Philip Morris to inhale Rothmans
As Philip Morris International Inc. made a friendly $2-billion takeover offer for Canadian cigarette maker Rothmans Inc. ...
Tuesday 24 June 2008 TORONTO: CANCER SOCIETY WARNS ABOUT CIGARILLOS
The Canadian Cancer Society has called for a government ban on the sale of cigarillos. The lobby was reacting to the 2006-2007 Youth Smoking Survey by the University of Waterloo which found that 35 per cent of Grade 10 to 12 students had tried cigars or cigarillos. According to the Society, cigarillos are attractive to young smokers because they come in such flavours as vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or mint but are just as liable to cause cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, lungs and esophagus as standard cigarettes.
Sunday 01 June 2008 OTTAWA: TWO MORE PROVINCES CRACK DOWN ON SMOKES
The provinces of Ontario and Quebec on Saturday joined the growing number of jurisdictions banning the display of cigarettes in convenience stores. The so-called power walls behind cash registers showing rows of cigarette packages will have to be covered up. Smokers will now be given a binder to choose their favourite brand and won't be allowed to touch the cigarettes before paying for them.
Saturday May 31, 2008
Quebec's anti-smoking laws became stricter today by disallowing smoking in the workplace, but the Quebec...
Saturday 31 May 2008 UN
The World Health Organization has called for a total ban on all advertising for tobacco products. The UN body issued its call on world tobaccoless day. The WHO says it wants to protect the health of 1.8 billion young people who are targeted by smoking ads. The organizations says that recent research shows that the more young people are exposed to such incentives, the more likely they are to end up smoking. The WHO published a report last February that indicates that 100 million people in the course of the 20th century died from having smoked.
Health Minister Tony Clement announces that the government will appeal a B.C. court decision on the Insite safe-injection project in Vancouver. A US military judge in the Omar Khadr case is abruptly replaced, raising suspicions that he was removed for being tough on the prosecution. Shocked Calgarians react with disbelief as a happy and normal family is slain in an apparent murder-suicide.
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INSITE INSIGHT The Globe fronts, while The National, the Post and the Citizen go inside and the Star briefs on the federal government’s decision to appeal a B.C. court ruling on the future of Insite, a Vancouver safe-injection facility that offers needle-drug users a supervised environment and support services. On Wednesday, Justice Ian Pitfield of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that federal drug laws are too broad and violate addicts’ Charter right to security, which should protect those providing and receiving services at Insite, and that therefore the facility does not require a waiver from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in order to operate. Appearing before the Commons health committee yesterday, Health Minister Tony Clement announced that the government would appeal Pitfield’s decision, stating that “supervised injection is not medicine-it does not heal the person addicted to drugs.”
Clement’s testimony at the health committee hearing, combined with his opinion piece in today’s Post, gives us a chance to examine his arguments against Insite and other harm-reduction programs. “The science is mixed but the public policy is clear,” claims Clement, in that the public health impacts of Insite have not been conclusively established while the terrible social impacts of addiction are still being felt. Among these public-policy failures, Clement cites the “$350,000 worth of crime” that addicts must commit per year to buy their fix, and the contradiction between upholding the rule of law and looking the other way for what are technically drug offences. Furthermore, Clement says, putting some addicts into rehab while offering others the chance to continue their habit under safer conditions is “sending a message: ‘We have given up on you.’” Dr. Donald Hedges, who did not travel to Ottawa to testify after protesters demonstrated outside his office in New Westminster, echoes the argument in asserting that the wealthy can pay to attend drug rehab and avail themselves of other “abstinence-based” programs, so “why do the people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside deserve less?” Clement and Hedges are correct in that Insite does treat some addicts differently. It does not do so, however, on the basis that their medical condition of addiction is somehow different. Rather, it acknowledges that their social condition, of concentrated poverty and mass addiction in Vancouver’s slowly gentrifying smack ghetto, necessitates a different approach to their medical and social troubles. While Clement argues that “every dollar spent on the supervised injection site diverts a dollar away from treatment,” Insite’s $3 million annual operating cost couldn’t begin to provide quality drug rehab facilities for its hundreds of regular clients. Until he’s ready to offer that medical opportunity-and improve the social context of the Downtown Eastside by some means other than more cops and more condominiums-he can’t condemn Insite as ethically failed merely on the slim grounds that harm-reduction suborns otherwise unlawful behaviour or commits other venal public policy sins. He hasn’t “given up” on the addicts of the Downtown Eastside because he hasn’t really tried yet.
Friday 30 May 2008 OTTAWA: 'SAFE-INJECTION' SITE COURT RULING TO BE APPEALED
The federal government says it intends to appeal a decision by the B.C. Supreme Court that allows North America's only "safe-injection" site to remain in operation. The "Insite" facility allows addicts to obtain clean needles to inject illegal drugs with a view to lessening the transmission of infectious diseases. The court ruled earlier this week that it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to close it. "Insite" operates under an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act which expires on June 30. The ruling struck down provisions of the law which prohibit possession and trafficking of drugs at such sites. Federal Health Minister Tony Clement says he'll ask the justice department to launch an appeal. On Wednesday, the minister said that the government doesn't think it a good idea to help people continue to use illegal drugs.
Friday May 30, 2008 Smokers lose another sanctuary
Montreal smokers don't seem to be letting the fact that they have to go outside for a puff eat into ...
Wednesday 28 May 2008 VANCOUVER: COURT RULES TO KEEP 'SAFE-INJECTION SITE
The British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled that it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to allow the city's controversial "safe-injection" site for drug addicts to be closed. "Insite" provides addicts with clean needles for their injections as a way of reducing the transmission of infectious diseases. The site is operating under an exemption from the country's drug laws, an exemption that expires on June 30. A group of addicts and the group that administers Insite asked the court to intervene on the grounds that it's under the jurisdiction of the province because of its status as a health-care facility
Wednesday 21 May 2008 VANCOUVER: POLICE GROUP BACKS SAFE-INJECTION SITE
A group of international retired police officers is in Canada lending support to a safe-injection facility for drug users in the west coast city of Vancouver. They were invited by Insite, a group that supports the liberalization of some of Canada's drug laws. Insite has offered a needle exchange program and a place in Vancouver for drug users to inject legally since 2003. But it may have to shut down by the end of June when its special exemption to the law expires. The retired officers have all worked in drug enforcement and say the facility should stay open because it helps people to control their drug use. Canada's Conservative government has yet to decide whether Insite will be allowed to continue its operations.
Thursday May 1, 2008 Quebec cons escape smoking ban
The Correctional Service of Canada says it is going to implement a total smoking ban in its prisons ...
Monday Apr 21, 2008 Total smoking ban leaves Quebec prisoners fuming
As the Correctional Service of Canada prepared for next month's smoking ban in its prisons across the.. According to a 2002 study, about 72 per cent of the inmate population smokes.
While the indoor smoking ban resulted in no major incidents, according to CSC, officials were reporting about 9,000 offences by March 2007 - about 16 per cent of all disciplinary charges for the period - resulting in more than 400 serious charges, all related to the smoking ban. [WHY? Dumb law!]
Sunday Apr 20, 2008 Final bell sounds in smoking battle
Tenant vs. Landlord A dispute over residential rights has ended with a victory for the anti-smokers
Battle of the viewpoints
Pro-smokers' website for Canada, bankrolled with $2.5 million provided by the tobacco industry, is www.. Additional reading of interest: tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com A registered charity founded in 1985, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada operates www.smoke-free.ca
Excerpt: "45,000 Canadians die from smoking each year - and the number is still growing. Tobacco is responsible for one in five deaths in Canada. This is roughly five times the number of deaths caused by car accidents, suicides, drug abuse, murder and AIDS combined. The chance of dying from smoking for long-time smokers is one in two. Deaths from smoking result in 15 years loss of expected life, on average. ... Every 35 minutes, a Canadian woman dies as a result of smoking. Lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer."
Quebec Court ruled this week that a Montreal tenant has no right to smoke in her apartment. The ruling raised anew the swirling debate on the right to smoke, or to avoid it.
If there's a conflict, we'll go smokefree
The University of Southern Maine has no doubt. Where the needs of smokers and non-smokers conflict, smoke-free air shall have priority.
Thursday 03 April 2008 Genetic link to smoking addiction
Scientists pinpoint genetic variations that raise smokers' risk of lung cancer - possibly by getting them hooked.
Tuesday 11 March 2008 Reminder to Smokers: Your Lungs Are Aging A simple discussion of lung capacity appears to double the rate patients follow a doctor’s advice to quit smoking.
A study published online March 7 in the British journal BMJ suggests that if a doctor tells smokers their “lung age” — the age of the average healthy nonsmoker who would match them in breathing strength — they are more likely to stop smoking.
Sunday Mar 2, 2008 Feds will force prisoners to butt out
Corrections Canada is set to ban smoking in its prisons across the country at the end of April, a move...
Friday 08 February 2008 AS SMOKING bans bite in the developed world the number of puffers in China, India and other developing countries continues to grow. The tobacco industry is regrouping in order to focus on poor countries and escape the pesky lawsuits it is likely to face in rich, litigious ones. But the war on smoking is spreading too. Over 150 countries have already ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which requires signatories to take a range of anti-smoking measures in the hope of avoiding appalling consequences for public health.
Monday Jan 28, 2008 Smokers don't need another law
Last week the Canadian Cancer Society unveiled a poll that suggested that most Canadians strongly favour a ban on smoking in private vehicles when children under 18 are present. In all, 82 per cent of Canadians approved the idea, including even 69 per cent of smokers. Meanwhile last week, the Canadian Lung Association accelerated its campaign to persuade all provinces to legislate such a ban. So far, only Nova Scotia has done so, but Quebec is considering going the same way.
2007
Tuesday 01 January 2008 GERMANY, FRANCE
Smokers in France and Germany are deploring strict bans on smoking that go into effect on New Year's Day. In France, the country's smoking ban in shops and offices will be extended to bars and cafes, where millions of citizens traditionally like to smoke. Germany will ban smoking in pubs and restaurants.
Thursday 04 October 2007 U.S. President George W. Bush has used his veto for only the fourth time to block a bill that would have raised tobacco taxes to expand health insurance for children. The program is designed to help children who are caught in the trap of not qualifying for medical assistance, but whose families are too poor to afford private coverage. Currently 6.6 million children are covered. The bipartisan bill would have raised the price of cigarettes by up to a dollar a pack to create the expanded health care.
Monday 17 September 2007 McGill University giving out free cocaine to drug users
Human guinea pigs in an unusual McGill University study are
being given cocaine for free in order that... Long-term study closely monitored. 'If you can't do the research, you can't help the people with addictions'
Let the joy be unconfined! Canada’s leading constitutional and civil liberties attorney, Me. maisonneuve.org', LEFT);" onmouseout="return nd();" target="_"> Julius Grey, has launched a court challenge to another piece of nanny-state fluff, Quebec’s proposed anti-smoking legislation Bill 112. What makes this law more draconian than most is that it not only outlaws smoking areas in bars and restaurants – in addition to all the current bans on smoking in public places – but adds three singularly egregious twists. No smoking at private parties on rented premises. No commercial establishments for smokers such as cigar lounges. No smoking within 30 metres of an entrance to a public building.
more by Beryl P. Wajsman
Tuesday 21 August 2007 VANCOUVER: PLAN SET FOR DANGEROUS IMPORTS
Federal Health Minister Tony Clement says the government is preparing a plan to deal with counterfeit and dangerous imported products. Mr. Clement told a meeting of the Canadian Medical Association that episodes like the lead in toys from China and bacteria in toothpaste from South Africa are serious health threats, adding that parents have a right to know that their children's health isn't jeopardized by imported products. The minister says the government review gaps in legislation, standards and regulations for foreign imported goods. On another subject, the minister said that his department wants to reduce the number of Canadians smoking tobacco to 12 per cent by 2011 from 19 per cent last year.
Monday 06 August 2007 Enforce the law on illegal smokes
About 22 per cent of all the cigarettes smoked in Canada are
contraband, and the government is losing a fortune in tax revenue by
allowing this reality to continue. In Quebec, the situation is even
worse than in other provinces, with fully 30 per cent of tobacco
being sold illegally.
Saturday 04 August 2007 UNDATED: SALES OF ILLEGAL CIGARETTES UP
A study commissioned by the Canadian Tobacco Products Manufacturers Council shows that the illegal cigarette traffic is increasing in Canada, being concentrated in Quebec and Ontario. The research indicates that the trade caused fiscal losses amounting to $1.6 billion a year to provincial and federal governments. The manufacturers say the main factor fuelling the illegal trafficking is price. The research demonstrates that 30 per cent of cigarettes in Quebec are sold illegally, up 37 per cent from 2006. Quebecers smoke more than 41 per cent of illegal cigarettes in the country. Ontarians smoke more than 55. Nationwide, 22 per cent of cigarettes are from illegal sources, a 30-per cent increase. The manufacturers say that the illegal tobacco is imported in bulk from China, South America or Africa. The tobacco is transformed into cigarettes on native reserves and then sold illegally untaxed. Such cigarettes are sold at $6 a carton, compared with between $50 and $70 a carton depending on the province.
Tuesday 17 July 2007 Tobacco Bill Includes Compromise and Criticism
By GARDINER HARRIS
Health advocates predict that this may be the year tobacco regulation is made law, but many reject some of the bill’s provisions.
Thursday 28 June 2007 OTTAWA: HIGH COURT TO HAND DOWN TOBACCO AD RULING
The Supreme Court of Canada rules on Thursday on the constitutionality of the federal law regulating the advertising of tobacco products. The law forbids most types of advertising, forbids attempts to sell tobacco products to minors and obliges tobacco firms to place images on cigarette packages showing the health dangers from tobacco use. Imperial Tobacco, JTI Macdonald and Rothmans Benson and Hedges, the country's three biggest tobacco firms, claim the law violates their freedom of expression under the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Debate about the issue has raged off and on for almost 20 years.
Jun. 18 - Already the most intensely-monitored country in the world, Britain is now home to a new generation of closed-circuit television cameras.
Big Tobacco to fight ad ban
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, February 19, 2007
OTTAWA
- Three of the country's largest tobacco companies will square off
against the federal government today as the Supreme Court of Canada
considers whether graphic health warnings on cigarette packages and
restrictions on tobacco advertising are constitutional.
The
Supreme Court is stepping back into the debate 12 years after it first
ruled, by a 5-4 margin, that a total ban on advertising violated the
freedom of commercial expression rights of cigarette companies.
This
time around, the court will consider whether a redrawn law that
severely restricts smoking ads, crafted in response to Ottawa's 1995
loss in the top court, is also unconstitutional.
The
revamped Tobacco Act is effectively an advertising ban that merely
"pays lip service" to the Supreme Court's call for a constitutional
law, lawyers for Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., JTI-Macdonald Corp. and
Rothmans, Benson and Hedges Inc. argue in a written court submission.
For
instance, there is not only a ban on ads targeting young people but
also those that "could be construed on reasonable grounds to be
appealing to young persons," explained Simon Potter, lawyer for
Imperial Tobacco.
The act, among other things, restricted
advertising to adult publications and establishments, such as magazines
and bars, and imposed a phased-in ban on sponsorship at events.
The
group Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada argues there should be no
cigarette advertising at all and that the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms should not be used "to protect the rights of corporations to
encourage harmful behaviour."
The government, tobacco companies
and anti-smoking groups have been in and out of the courts for two
decades fighting over laws governing cigarette advertising and whether
a ban is constitutionally justified given that smoking is a health
hazard.
The Canadian Cancer Society, which is intervening in the
latest appeal, says times have changed since the Supreme Court's last
ruling and there is now a complete advertising ban in most countries.
The
Supreme Court, in its 1995 decision, written by Beverley McLachlin, who
is now the chief justice and the only remaining judge who sat on the
appeal at the time, noted it's always difficult "to confront the tide
of popular public opinion."
But she concluded that Parliament,
regardless of the importance of its anti-smoking campaign, failed to
demonstrate its ban was "reasonable and proportionate" when compared to
the rights that were being violated.
The Quebec Court of Appeal
awarded a concession to tobacco companies in 2005, ruling the ban on
company promotion at events goes too far by limiting freedom of
expression "in an abusive manner."
The court reinstated companies being able to use their names for promotion but upheld a ban on advertising their brands.
The
three big tobacco companies are also appealing federal regulations that
force them to print on cigarette packages graphic health warnings with
colour photos, including ones of cancerous lungs.
The regulations require 16 rotated pictures with warnings to cover the top half of the front and back of cigarette packages.
The appeal comes at a time when smoking rates continue to decline in Canada.
The
Canadian Cancer Society, however, says lung cancer is the leading cause
of cancer death for both men and women; smoking is responsible for
killing 45,000 people annually, accounting for 30% of all cancer deaths
in Canada.
Saturday 27 January 2007 In Clue to Addiction, Brain Injury Halts Smoking Scientists studying stroke patients are reporting today that an injury to a specific part of the brain, near the ear, can instantly and permanently break a smoking habit. People with the injury who stopped smoking found that their bodies, as one man put it, “forgot the urge to smoke.
2006
Friday 15 December 2006 Radioactive Polonium in Tobacco Given what's happened in the UK (and elswhere) recently, and the traces being found all over Europe, this is actually quite interesting! Polonium seems to be very powerful. [thank you Ron]
Friday 10 November 2006 OTTAWA: CIGARETTE MAKERS TO DROP 'LIGHT' FROM PACKAGES
Canada's Competition Bureau has announced that the country's three biggest makers of tobacco products have agreed voluntarily to stop using the words "light" and "mild" on cigarette packages. The companies are Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., Rothmans Benson and Hedges Inc. and JTI-Macdonald Corp. The decision affects 79 brands of cigarette. The agreement ends a complaint about the practice brought by 11 parties, some of which disagree with the outcome. The Non-Smokers Rights Association complains that the voluntary agreement doesn't prevent cigarette makers from using equivalent terms or colour coding to convey the same misleading idea to consumers, and that some tobacco firms are already using such tricks. The Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, for its part, complains that the outcome goes against World Health Organization advice against voluntary agreements with tobacco firms, saying that strong regulation is the only solution.
Monday 06 November 2006 British Columbia is now the eighth province to clamp down hard on smoking in public places. The province will ban smoking in all indoor public places, including bars, restaurants, schools and hospitals. Premier Gordon Campbell told the annual meeting of his Liberal party in Penticton the measure is aimed at improving the health of British Columbians. The public smoking ban will take full effect in 2008, giving businesses and institutions time to put it in effect. Seven provinces and two territories already have anti-public smoking legislation in place. Mr. Campbell also says junk food will be gone from all vending machines in publicly owned buildings by next spring, including hospitals. The government had earlier committed to removing junk food from schools. On another matter, Mr. Campbell announced that children born in BC after January 1, 2007 will receive an education baby bonus. He says the Liberal government will invest $1,000 in the name of every BC infant born after the date. He says the government will hold the funds, invest them, and apply the principal and interest to post-secondary education fees. More details will be available this week. Mr. Campbell says he expects the $1,000 will roughly double by the time the child needs the educational credit. The premier made the announcement at the BC Liberal Party convention, held this weekend in Penticton.
Saturday 28 October 2006 TORONTO: TOBACCO FIRM BLAMES EARNINGS DROP ON CONTRABAND
Canadian tobacco firm Rothmans Inc. has blamed a decrease in its summer quarter earnings on the contraband cigarette trade. Rothmans has reported a quarterly profit of $28.3 million, a decline of six per cent. CEO John Barnett blames the decline of 10 per cent for the legal tobacco industry as a whole on criminal activities that damage Canadian society, reduce government tax revenue and increase the cost both to government and to the general public to combat contraband. Mr. Barnett says he agrees with a recent study by his company's competitor, Imperial Tobacco, that one-fourth of the cigarettes smoked in Ontario and Quebec come from illicit sources, of which almost all stem from native reserves in the U.S.
Thursday Jun 1, 2006 New smoking ban will help save lives
Bar and pub owners may fulminate and a few frustrated tobacco addicts may mutter about civil disobedience. But Ontario's welcome ban on smoking in enclosed public places, including specially ventilated smoking rooms, is provincial law. The ban officially comes into force today, along with restrictions on tobacco displays and cigarette advertising in stores. And it is unlikely to ever be reversed.
Thursday Jun 1, 2006 The two central Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec were to put into effect at midnight Tuesday strict bans against smoking in public places. The details of both provinces' laws are similar, but the situation in Ontario differs in that several municipalities, including Toronto and Ottawa, had already put non-smoking bans in public into effect. Ontario's health promotion minister, Jim Watson, says the government will give establishment owners a brief period to adjust during which warnings will be issued. Quebec, however, will start prosecution of offenders immediately at midnight. That province's law imposes a $400 fine for a first offence, plus a $300 additional fine if employees interfere with inspectors' work.
Sunday May 28, 2006 No Smoking ... Says Who? The city has a reputation for smoky bars jammed with bon vivants who collectively shrug their shoulders at cancer statistics, then light up.
No smoking. no jaywalking. no fun?
May 20, 1966. Through the thin blue haze of an unfiltered
Export A, the young mother rocks her baby, watching idly as a pack
of kids climb onto the scaffolding at the unfenced construction site
across...
Friday Apr 28, 2006 maisonneuve.OF VICE AND SIN The
National and CTV
News brave it alone today (La Presse and the
Globe carried the story yesterday), with a study that suggests
substance abuse in this country costs the economy $40 billion a year.
Measuring the direct and indirect costs of smoking, drinking and illegal
drug usage, the Canadian
Centre on Substance Abuse calculated the toll such vices have on
healthcare, law enforcement and work place productivity. The study’s
principal investigator, Jurgen Rehm, underscored that while anti-smoking
campaigns and strict by-laws have begun to slow smoking related costs that
were once escalating out of control, yet another problem has begun to
flourish—binge drinking. Rehm said governments needs to take this trend
seriously and consider appropriate action, like increasing the tax on
liquor. According to Rehm, even addicts tend curb their consumption habits
when it affects their wallets. If the health of Canadians won’t snap Ottawa
and the provinces to attention, then maybe the monumental drain on public
coffers
will.
Wednesday Apr 19, 2006 rci Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says his government will continue its anti-smoking campaign despite opposition to it from store owners who are suffering from it. Mr. McGuinty says the decision to raise tobacco taxes is justified because pricing is the single most important factor determining whether young people turn to cigarettes. The premier says his government's policy on smoking is having a positive effect on the health of Ontarians. The government increased tax on a carton of cigarettes by $1.25 in January, the fourth tobacco tax increase since Mr. McGuinty's Liberal Party assumed power in 2003. On May 31, a new law will come into effect banning smoking in all public places. As the premier spoke, several hundred Korean business owners demonstrated in protest, complaining that the high taxes have led to lower sales. The Ontario Korean Businessmen's Association has asked the government for transitional aid, similar to the $100 million earnmarked by help Ontario's tobacco farmers.
Sunday Mar 19, 2006 nyt Smoking Ban Takes Effect, Indoors and Out By JOHN M. BRODER An ordinance in Calabasas, Calif., prohibits smoking in all public places where anyone might be exposed to secondhand smoke.
Friday Feb 17, 2006 ts Addicts at risk in drug scheme
Thousands of addicts are being put at risk by pharmacists who provide drugs in a scheme that is being described as "disgraceful" and "unprofessional." Jessica Leeder and Kevin Donovan report
Wednesday Feb 15, 2006 nyt Following Alan Greenspan Ben Bernanke's first report to Congress Wednesday is a big moment for Mr. Bernanke, and perhaps for the economy.
Wednesday Feb 15, 2006 nyt British Ban Indoor Smoking By ALAN COWELL After tortured debate, Parliament voted 384 to 184 on Tuesday to enact a total ban on smoking in indoor public places in England.
Tuesday Jan 24, 2006 nyt Smoking and Fuming By JAVIER MARÍAS The new antismoking law in Spain is a measure that is far more befitting of Franco than a democracy.
Wednesday Oct 26, 2005 How to end the war on drugs:
Since Norm Stamper is a former cop who served on the Seattle police
department for 34 years -- the last few of those as chief of police --
you might think that he has a few ideas about how to win the war on
crime and in particular, drug-related crime. And he sure does: he thinks they should be legalized.
Not just marijuana, but all drugs of any kind, including heroin,
cocaine, methamphetamines, LSD, mushrooms and just about anything else
you can think of. Mr. Stamper notes he has never understood why "adults
shouldn't enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to
suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water," and says that
prohibition of drugs rests on the same "wobbly foundation" as
prohibition of alcohol did. "Not until we choose to frame responsible
drug use — not an oxymoron in my dictionary — as a civil liberty will
we be able to recognize the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, for what
it is: a medical, not a criminal, matter," the former police chief
says. He recommends legalization, with government controlling the sale
and licensing, and the use of the tax proceeds to fund health care for
addicts. "Combined with treatment, education and other public health
programs for drug abusers," he says, "regulated legalization would make
your city or town an infinitely healthier place to live and raise a
family."
Friday Oct 21, 2005 rci Imperial Tobacco Canada, the country's biggest cigarette maker, has announced that it will close its plants at Guelph and Aylmer in southwestern Ontario with the loss of 650 jobs. Imperial says the production there will be shifted to Monterrey, Mexico, where its parent firm, British American Tobacco, has manufacturing facilities. Fifteen jobs also will be lost at Imperial's headquarters in Montreal. The cigarette factory in Guelph is the biggest in Canada. Imperial says the decision has resulted from the fact that fewer Canadians are smoking. [goodie!]
Tuesday Oct 18, 2005 ts $26M pot bust may be largest outdoor grow-op
PAISLEY—Police say it could be the largest outdoor marijuana operation in Ontario history.
Friday Oct 14, 2005 rci The government of the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia has followed the example of British Columbia on the other side of the country in introducing legislation that would enable its government to recover from tobacco firms its medical costs to treat victims of tobacco-related illnesses. The legislation covers the present, future and 50 years of the past, as is the case with B.C.'s legislation. Nova Scotia's justice minister, Michael Baker, says it's time to hold tobacco companies responsible for their marketing practices. No amount of damages is contained in the bill, but officials say that the government must spend $170 million a year to treat cancers and other sicknesses caused by smoking. On Sept. 29, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that B.C.'s anti-tobacco legislation is constitutional. The Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council has denounced the legislation as "another tax grab by yet another province."
Saturday Oct 1, 2005 ts Top court clears way for lawsuits
OTTAWA—The Supreme Court of Canada has cleared the path for provincial governments to recover billions of dollars in smoking-related health-care costs from the companies that manufacture and sell cigarettes.
Monday Sep 26, 2005 rci The Supreme Court of Canada will rule next week on the constitutionality of provincial efforts to sue the tobacco industry. The case involves a challenge by tobacco companies of a British Columbia law that allows the provincial government to sue for damages for smoking-related diseases. The court announced on Friday that it would render its decision on Thursday.
rci The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in favour of the government of the province of British Columbia in a case involving tobacco companies. The court ruled unanimously that a provincial law that enables the B.C. government to recover the public health costs resulting from smoking illnesses is constitutional. The law also enables B.C. to recover such costs in the future. Imperial Tobacco, JTI-Macdonald and Rothmans, Benson and Hedges argued in vain that the law exceeded the province's jurisdiction. The B.C. government took the position that the legislation is justified as a response to misleading advertising on the part of the companies that caused the spread of smoking as a health hazard. The upholding of the law could cost the companies billions of dollars. Last year, B.C. launched a suit against the three main Canadian tobacco firms, Imperial Tobacco, JTI-Macdonald and Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, as well as against nine foreign tobacco companies. Other provincial governments are thought likely to launch similar suits against the tobacco firms.
Friday Aug 19, 2005 ts Anti-smoking crusader`s lung cancer has spread OTTAWA— The woman who won the first successful workers compensation claim for lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke is now losing her long battle with the dreaded disease.
ts Do politics affect drug coverage? Politics and patient lobbying are deciding what new expensive drugs get approved in Canada, says an editorial in a leading Canadian medical journal.
Monday Aug 15, 2005 uedm State-tobacco
“cure” worse than the “disease” In a recent book, Curing the
Addiction to Profits, nationalizing the tobacco industry is presented
as the solution for curbing tobacco consumption in Canada. Such a “cure,”
if actually implemented, would be worse than the “disease.” Article (en
anglais) de Valentin Petkantchin, directeur de la recherche à l'IEDM,
publié le 12 août dans le Financial Post.
Friday Aug 12, 2005 rci Statistics Canada reports that the prevalence of smoking in Canada continues to drop. The agency says the 20 per cent of people older than 15 were continuing to smoke last year. That compares with 21 per cent in the previous year, and 24 per cent in 2000. The health minister, Ujjal Dosanjh, says the news is good but that more must be done to persuade high-risk groups, such as natives and young adults, to quit. The Canadian Cancer Society says that one way to meet that goal would be to raise taxes on tobacco products, particularly in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, provinces which have kept cigarette taxes relatively low to prevent a resurgence of the smuggling seen in the 1990s.
The Canadian has proposed to check the growing use of a dangerous, illegal drug by increasing penalties for those found guilty of producing or distributing it. The health minister, Mr. Dosangh, announced the stiffened penalties for possession, production and distribution of methamphetamine, also known by a variety of other names, including "crystal meth." The minister says the maximum punishment for distribution or production will rise from 10 years in prison to life, the same penal sanction as for cocaine. Mr. Dosanjh says methamphetamine is a serious health, social and economic menace to both users and their communities.
Monday Jul 18, 2005 rci Courts in two western Canadian provinces are preparing to hear arguments this week against provincial smoking laws. Bar owners in Manitoba and Saskatchewan contend that recent new laws banning smoking in their bars are a violation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One Manitoba bar owner will stand trial in Treherne on Monday on charges of permitting smoking. His lawyer will argue that the law does not apply to native Canadian reserves. Some native reserves have opened gambling halls that allow smoking. In Saskatchewan, the province's Hotels Association will launch its court challenge to the smoking laws on Thursday. Last October, Manitoba and New Brunswick became the first Canadian provinces to ban smoking virtually in all enclosed public places. Canada's most populous province, Ontario, is preparing similar legal bans.
Friday Jun 10, 2005 ts Ontario passes smoking ban
The Ontario legislature has passed anti-tobacco legislation banning smoking in all indoor public and work places.
Saturday May 21, 2005 ts Dark days ahead for lighting up
Anti-tobacco activists vowed yesterday to keep pressing for stricter restrictions on smoking after the Ontario Legislature passed one of North America`s toughest laws against lighting up.
Friday Jun 10, 2005 rci Ontario's legislature has approved what the provincial government describes as the widest-sweeping smoking ban in North American. The vote in favour of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act was 71-6. The law will go into effect a year from now. Premier Dalton McGuinty says his government has taken a strong stand against tobacco, which he says it the first cause of preventable deaths in the province, killing 16,000 residents a year. The premier added that sickness and deaths resulting from smoking cost Ontario $2.7 billion in lost productivity and $1.6 billion in health-care costs yearly.
Wednesday May 11, 2005 rci QUEBEC CITY: PROVINCE TO CURB SMOKING
The Quebec government has introduced legislation to ban smoking in most public places. Quebec's health minister, Philippe Couillard, has presented amendments to the province's smoking laws that would ban smoking in bars, restaurants and schoolyards. Violators would face severe sanctions. The legislation would go into effect in January 2006.
Tuesday Mar 22, 2005 ts Smoker savours $16.7M victory
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday rejected an appeal by Philip Morris, setting the stage for the tobacco giant to pay nearly $17 million (U.S.) to a Glendale, Calif., woman who contracted lung cancer. It would be the largest payment and the first punitive damages ever paid to an individual smoker.
Sunday Mar 20, 2005 ts Grow op: a crime without penalty
It was every indoor marijuana grower`s worst nightmare: Police pounding at the door, the prospect of a lost crop and jail time. Lenordd, 50, a former pot grower who spoke to the Star on the condition of anonymity. says it was just one of the many ``close calls`` he remembers in the two decades he spent growing pot in Toronto. Betsy Powell reports.
Friday Mar 11, 2005 ts Grow op: a crime without penalty
It was every indoor marijuana grower`s worst nightmare: Police pounding at the door, the prospect of the cash crop going up in smoke and the potential for jail time.
Friday Mar 11, 2005 ts U.S. attacks Canadian pot laws
WASHINGTON—A surge of high-potency marijuana illegally smuggled into the United States from Canada is fuelling a rise in drug dependency among young Americans, the Bush administration`s drug czar says.
Tuesday Mar 8, 2005 OTTAWA: JUDGES CALLED LENIENT ON MARIJUANA GROWERS
Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler says some judges are too lenient in sentencing people found guilty of cultivating marijuana. The minister says marijuana-growing is a multi-million-dollar "scourge to our citizens." Mr. Cotler says federal prosecutors will start advising judges on appropriate sentences for such offenders because some sentences have been far too soft. Last Thursday, four officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were shot to death by the proprietor of a marijuana farm in northwestern Alberta, who was himself shot to death in as yet unexplained circumstances. Huge crowds are expected to attend the funeral in Alberta of the slain officers later this week. The Liberal Party government will propose legislation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana but will increase the penalties for growing and trafficking the substance.
Monday Mar 7, 2005 ts Pill for quitting smoking closer
GROTON, Conn.—If smokers could vaccinate themselves against nicotine addiction or pop a pill to eliminate their cravings, drug researchers are betting they would.
NATIONAL | March 5, 2005 nyt Violent New Front in Drug War Opens on the Canadian Border By SARAH KERSHAW
A potent form of marijuana from Canada has become the center of an increasingly violent cultivation and smuggling industry.
The drugs move across the Canadian border inside huge tractor-trailer rigs, pounds and pounds stashed in drums of frozen raspberries, tucked in shipments of crushed glass, wood chips and sawdust, or crammed into hollowed-out logs, in secret compartments that agents refer to as "coffins."
Sun Jan 9, 2005 globe Italy fumes over smoking ban
ROME—Office workers took their cigarette breaks on the street yesterday after a strict law banning smoking in bars, restaurants, offices and other public spaces came into force in Italy.
Wednesday Jan 16, 2002 Chinese smokers 'need less nicotine' bbc
Smokers of Chinese origin may be less likely to develop lung cancer than other people because they take in less nicotine per cigarette, scientists say.
They also found the group breaks-down nicotine at two-thirds the rate of white or Latino people, meaning they need to smoke fewer cigarettes to satisfy their craving.
Taliban Raise Poppy Production to a Record Again August 26, 2007 |
more photos
BBC
Michael's Essay on Smokers as Lepers (Apr 20/03)
Pricing powderMonday 02 July 2007 
Violent New Front in Drug War Opens on the Canadian Border 
Chinese smokers 'need less nicotine'
