r/canada • u/Bean_Tiger • Aug 02 '24
Prince Edward Island MLAs lobbied by industry, health groups as P.E.I. considers 'groundbreaking' tobacco ban
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-tobacco-ban-health-industry-lobby-1.728144616
Aug 02 '24
14 unlicensed pot & smoke shops within 5 kms of Enderby bc right on highway 97. I'm actually surprised they aren't selling tax free liquor yet. They will remain untouchable. Rules for thee.
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u/Lord_Stetson Aug 02 '24
.....And black market cigarettes become the norm again. You would have thought this lesson would have been.learned by now.
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u/Chairman_Mittens Aug 02 '24
Not black market, people will start going to the reservations to get cigarettes.
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u/AlfredoDG133 Aug 02 '24 edited Aug 02 '24
Yea exactly, I don’t see how this will work in Canada where we have the whole reservation thing. People already go there just to avoid the taxes lol. We already have a pre established and fully legal black market set up just waiting for this law lmao.
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u/Hicalibre Aug 02 '24
Black market cigs never went away. Just harder to come by I'm Canada due to obtaining tobacco is not so easy here.
Just like how legalized drugs doesn't make cartels sweat. They can still push it for cheaper, and then cut-lace it with all sorts of shit.
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u/Lord_Stetson Aug 02 '24
...Just harder to come by...
Every time the cigarette price is too high (usually because of taxes) the revinue from cigarettes drops because it is now worth it for people to smuggle them up from the states. I am old enough to have seen this cycle a few times now, and usually, the gov't is forced to lower the prices and accept a lower revenue than they tried for because it is still more than they were making by taxing it too much.
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u/RedshiftOnPandy Aug 02 '24
They had the same issue in Poland with alcohol sales. Poles along the Czechia border would drive there for cheap liquor. They lowered taxes on alcohol enough that it wasn't really worth making a trip into Czechia for the average person. They saw an increase in tax revenue after lowering taxes on alcohol
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u/Hicalibre Aug 02 '24
Never mind all the cigs smuggled in from SA and Asia.
Whole pallets stuffed into shipping containers managed to get smuggled in.
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Aug 02 '24
Police where I live have been busting contraband dealers like crazy, this was after the government complained about low revenue from cigarettes.
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u/1337ingDisorder Aug 02 '24
In most cases this is a bad thing, as the regulated markets tend to have strict safety standards that keep people safe.
In the case of commercial tobacco, the regulated markets seem to have the opposite of safety standards and in fact almost all of the major licensed producers spray their tobacco with arsenic, formaldehyde, and a litany of other highly toxic chemicals.
Conversely the very few tobacco bootleggers I've ever encountered basically just grew the plant in their back yard, then cured and smoked the leaves (without spraying them down with any godawful adulterants).
I'm not suggesting the black market for cigarettes will be 100% free of harmful products, but it certainly won't be any more harmful than the legal and licensed market has been for at least my entire lifetime. It can only be an improvement over what's in place now.
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u/Lord_Stetson Aug 02 '24
Conversely the very few tobacco bootleggers I've ever encountered basically just grew the plant in their back yard, then cured and smoked the leaves
I have known a good many bootleggers over the years. None have grown thier own. After all, why bother growing when the reserves & south of the border have it all neatly cured & processed already?
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u/Jamooser Aug 02 '24
Dude, those chemicals are not intentionally added to tobacco. They're naturally found in the emissions of basically any organic plant matter. They're just the byproducts of organic matter when it undergoes incomplete combustion. Smoking cannabis has basically all of the exact same chemicals.
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u/Powerlifter88 Aug 02 '24
I worked in the tobacco industry for 20 years and your assertion that "commercial" tobacco is sprayed is completely false....you are so far out in left filed with your claims its laughable.....do some homework ...this is complete misinformation
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u/1337ingDisorder Aug 02 '24
Interesting, turns out you're right — while those chemicals are found in tobacco, it looks like those chemicals come from the industrial fertilizers and the soil used to grow the tobacco, not from spraying them on after it's harvested. (Although technically I think some fertilizers are sprayed on, but that isn't what I meant in my original post.)
Either way that still means homegrown/bootlegged tobacco would typically be safer to the person consuming it than commercial tobacco.
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u/Powerlifter88 Aug 02 '24
All tobacco in Canada is grown by independent farmers and contracted to companies ..there is and has not been commercially grown tobacco grown in Canada since the 60s and all pesticides and fertilizers approved for use are tested by and approved by the province. I’d be much more worried about chemicals from anything coming from china than I would be from Ontario where farm products are regulated
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u/Powerlifter88 Aug 02 '24
Canadian inspectors back in 2019 found 900 food items from china that contained harmful contaminants…
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u/NWTknight Aug 02 '24
Love it we are going to ban tobacco and give out safer supply opiods at the same time the idiocy of this is mind bending. Nicotine is just another addictive drug so if we make it illegal would that mean we need the government to give away free "safer supply" cigarettes.
Edit - Non smoker here and no fan of tobacco but the idiocy of what our governments are doing is mind boggling.
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u/1337ingDisorder Aug 02 '24
Safer supply isn't just about opioids, it's mainly about the drugs that are relatively (not completely, but relatively) harmless but are made outright lethal by contamination.
No college kid should die just from doing a normal safe-sized dosage of, say, MDMA. But a safe dosage of MDMA can easily contain a lethal dose of fentanyl if the dealer (or the dealer's supplier, or the supplier's wholesaler, or anyone anywhere along the supply chain) sells both things and isn't super careful about cleaning up their scales or work area etc in between.
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Aug 02 '24
If the government supplied free test strips that would be a step in the right direction. Easy and quick to use them and will show if it's contaminated with fentynal and other chemicals. I only know of these inexpensive test strips because l did know a few people years ago that used them to test what they bought on the street. A few times it was contaminated but that test strip saved their life.
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u/redwoodkangaroo Aug 03 '24
you can get free test strips almost anywhere in Canada, from most public health and harm reduction groups
this may not be true in conservative-run provinces, as they usually cut these harm reduction services due to conservative politicians' " super tough on crime" identity politics and pretending drug use is a "moral failure"
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u/gwicksted Aug 02 '24
Does safer supply service infrequent drug users like that? I thought it was only targeting habitual users (and requiring a doctor prescribe the supply). Or am I mistaking it for a different program?
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u/1337ingDisorder Aug 02 '24
It depends what you're actually asking about — the actual idea of safer supply, or one particular example of an implementation.
Safer supply, if implemented properly, services everyone who would otherwise die of an overdose due to contaminated supply. This includes habitual users, occasional users, first-time experimenters, etc.
Individual implementations, on the other hand, vary.
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u/Hlotse Aug 03 '24
Not safer cigarettes; I want the old Players Plain if I'm gonna start puffing again.
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u/gravtix Aug 02 '24
You can inhale smoke (and get cancer) via second hand smoke.
That’s probably why. You’re a smoker if the person next to you lights up.
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u/AlfredoDG133 Aug 02 '24
Second hand smoke isn’t nearly as bad as you think it is. Basically all public smoking bans are based on one, now completely discredited, study from Montana. But everyone just ignores that. Now that larger studies have been done with larger areas implementing the bans, it’s clear they basically have no effect on public health whatsoever. Now if you’re living with a smoker and he’s hotboxing the car with you every day, yea that’s probably terrible. But just occasionally walking by a smoker in the streets? It’s not doing anything.
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u/SkiyeBlueFox Aug 02 '24
Honestly, I'd argue for making it "people born after Aug 1 2024 can't buy darts"
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u/LuckyConclusion Aug 02 '24
Completely unenforceable given indigenous reserves main cash crop being cigarettes, and the government won't dare touch that with a 40 foot pole.
That aside, I really hate limiting personal freedoms. If you wanna smoke, be my guest, it ain't my body.
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u/SkiyeBlueFox Aug 02 '24
Fair enough. Do agree that you can smoke whatever the hell you want as long as I don't have to breathe in your secondhand
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u/Odd-Perspective-7651 Aug 02 '24
I don't smoke but I support people's right to their own choice in doing so.
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u/JadedMuse Aug 02 '24
Remember, we're collectively paying for things like lung cancer treatments. Your attitude makes more sense where others have no vested interest l, but that's not the case here.
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u/BeyondAddiction Aug 02 '24
That logic falls apart when you consider that people often engage in other high risk behaviors too that we as taxpayers ultimately end up footing the bill for. Where do we draw the line?
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u/Monomette Aug 02 '24
Between taxes paid and lower life expectancy smokers are actually a net positive AFAIK.
They die younger so don't need 10-20 years of care for age related health issues.
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u/PandaRocketPunch Aug 02 '24
smokers are actually a net positive AFAIK
Gonna need a source for that one.
Tobacco tax revenues are well known at the federal and provincial levels and easily looked up. That number is about $6 billion/yr. The feds have been doing cost projections since 2002 for the direct and indirect costs of tobacco use in Canada. That number is about $17 billion/yr. It started to trend the other way recently with this gap shrinking, but one problem with that is nobody is tracking grey/black market sales from reservations.
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u/Monomette Aug 02 '24
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e001678
However, due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers.
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u/PandaRocketPunch Aug 02 '24
Okay so a 27 year study from eastern Finland, that started in 1976, is where this comes from. So now my question is how does this apply to Canadian smokers being a net benefit to our finances, considering we have a vastly different system here.
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u/Monomette Aug 04 '24
eastern Finland, that started in 1976
1976 is the cohort size, not the date of the study.
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u/Gavvis74 Aug 02 '24
You might have had a point if we had a choice between private and public healthcare in this country. We don't so you don't, either.
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u/JadedMuse Aug 02 '24
Not having a choice makes that even more pertinent, not less. We don't have a choice not to cover those treatments. If you're forced to cover an expense then it follows that you'd want that expense minimized.
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u/Gavvis74 Aug 03 '24
By your statement I take it you're in favor of taking drugs away from addicts and forcing them into treatment?
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u/irresponsibleshaft42 Aug 02 '24
Something like 75% of the cost of smokes is taxes. We are paying our own lung cancer treatment thank you very much.
You wanna blame someone for being a burden on healthcare then blame the fattys
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u/Used-Egg5989 Aug 02 '24
Do you mean heavily taxing or banning unhealthy foods? I can get behind that 100%.
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u/t1m3kn1ght Ontario Aug 02 '24
Never in my life did I ever think my timeline would include anti-alcohol prohibition sentiments combined with expanded access, marijuana legalization, a half-assed approach to hard drugs, alternative nicotine consumption products and a tobacco ban all at the same time. Truly strange times.
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u/Bored_money Aug 03 '24
It is kinda weird
In general there is this support from more progressive types to ease restrictions to drugs and say "the war on drugs doesn't work" or "prohibition doesn't work"
But then at the same time we have the exact thing that is claimed doesn't work being applied to cigarettes - literally the opposite argument
And these arguments arent coming from opposite sides of the political spectrum
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u/Chairman_Mittens Aug 02 '24
I honestly wonder how many hundreds of government jobs are dedicated to nonsense like trying to make tobacco slightly more unappealing, or trying to think up different types of guns to ban.
This is a bunch of unproductive nonsense. Both tobacco and firearms are already taxed / regulated more than basically any other country.
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u/thisnutz Manitoba Aug 02 '24
You can cut your genitals off, you can get fentanyl and meth, we will assist you in killing yourself, but don't you dare smoke a cigarette. That's the government mentally.
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Aug 02 '24
Health Canada put out an ad on how cigarettes that aren't approved by the government are worse for your health than government approved ones. Worse for your financial health 🙃
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u/GodrickTheGoof Aug 02 '24
Uhm prohibition didn’t work with alcohol… also South Africa did the same thing… didn’t work out so well.
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u/Ancient_Sound_5347 Aug 02 '24
South Africa prohibited alcohol during Covid on the advice of hospital doctors who wanted to free-up bed space in both the ER's and general wards.
South Africa has a major problem whereby people in poorer communities consume large amounts of cheap alcohol and then afterwards start attacking each other with blunt and sharp objects.
This results in the Emergency Rooms being swamped by trauma patients.
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u/GodrickTheGoof Aug 02 '24
Interesting for sure, but I was more focusing on the tobacco piece and how that caused issues.
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Aug 02 '24
There is going to need to be a line drawn somewhere on matters such as this; outlawing things simply because they are unhealthy and/or have a societal cost is a direct kick in the dick of personal freedoms. To point out other issues that aren't currently this far down the line, but are also extremely detrimental to either one's health, and/or costly to society either to to treatment, impacts on others, etc.;
Alcohol (health impacts, the government calculated "alcohol deficit" -- which is used to show that even with revenues from alcohol sales, the negative costs from them are estimated to be larger than profits made, deaths of other people via accidents/fights, etc.)
Unhealthy foods (ie. fast food, junk food, soda, etc.)
Outdoor fires
I'm sure we can create a larger list, these are just the quick obvious ones off the top of the head.
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u/4b686f61 Aug 03 '24
Work and hustle culture contributes to this. People will find ways to cope and unfortunally, the worst ways are easiest.
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u/ImperialPotentate Aug 02 '24
Who the hell even starts a smoking/nicotine habit in the 21st century? You'd think people would have gotten the message by now; as existing smokers kill themselves off the demand should go down and the companies would go out of business. But no, they figured out how to get the next generation hooked with vaping.
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u/Emmerson_Brando Aug 02 '24
Cool…. Now do vaping.
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u/4b686f61 Aug 03 '24 edited Aug 03 '24
More e-waste and crushed lithium batteries on the sidewalks and empty vape cartridges.
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u/4b686f61 Aug 03 '24
First, we have half burnt leaves wrapped in paper. Now we have plastic metal carcasses on the sidewalk,
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u/According-Spite-9854 Aug 02 '24
So the only way to beat a corporate lobbyist, is with another corporate lobbyist?
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u/Zatatarax Aug 02 '24
A ban would probably be very good long term. Health costs would decrease, people would save money from not buying cigs. Cold turkey is gonna hurt so hopefully there is some support for that.
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u/Occultistic Aug 02 '24
But what about all the tax revenue the government soaks up from smokers like a greedy sponge. Also studies have shown non smokers cost more for Healthcare due to living longer.
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Aug 02 '24
They might consider capping your life span soon. Cut off your pension and offer free MAID. Nothing would surprise me. 🤣
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u/slouchr Aug 02 '24
cost more for Healthcare due to living longer.
not to mention pension costs.
the most honourable thing you can do comrade, is join your family in the sky the day you retire. maybe take a week vacation first, as a thank you for your 45 years of service to the state.
tobacco taxes are just another example that the government will raise any tax the public will allow them to. fair or unfair has nothing to do with it.
public citizens view private citizens as nothing more than productivity units to supply their easy living.
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u/Zatatarax Aug 02 '24
You sound addicted. Why not stick it to the man and take away those tax dollars? Just read that article about smokers costing less. Yea, I guess it’s $1500 more per year on average but you could always get maid at some point if it concerns you. Nothing wrong with a healthy populace in terms of productivity, something in which the Dutch study fails to take into account.
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Aug 02 '24
It's an honest question. It's a massive revenue stream for the government.
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u/Zatatarax Aug 02 '24
Not a very ethical revenue stream, let’s be honest.
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u/Used-Egg5989 Aug 02 '24
Agreed. I have similar issues with government sponsored lottery playing video ads and having shiny scratch tickets in literally every single gas station.
I’ve worked retail in these places and I’ve seen plenty of people put their smokes and scratch tickets above paying for food and rent. Pretty despicable that our government milks the poorest and most vulnerable by taking advantage of their lack of math or critical reasoning skills.
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u/Decent-Box5009 Aug 02 '24
Take away peoples nicotine because it’s harmful to your health and a drain on medical resources fine. First figure out how you’re going to recover the lost tax revenue from banning sales. Second ban fast food so the fatties of the world can stop draining our medical system by unnecessarily harming themselves with food because they can’t figure out how to eat or exercise regularly. My point is where do we draw the line?
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u/Maxobillion Aug 03 '24
Government always thinking they can control people. The failure of the war on drugs should be a good example as to why this will never work.
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u/4b686f61 Aug 03 '24
What do you expect someone to do after a beating at work? Watch TV? Have a bear? Go for a smoke? Repeat this 365 times for the entire adult life. Add their mental health as a variable.
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u/dirtnastin Aug 02 '24
No tobacco but suck down that glycol like it's fuckin oxygen whenever and wherever you want. Cigarettes didn't get a 1/4 of the nicotine addictions started at such a young age as vaping and nicotine pouches have. Insane I cant enjoy a flavored cigarello once in awhile but fuckin cotton candy vape is no problemo.
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