Traffic in cheap, contraband cigarettes is becoming so prevalent in Kingston that it threatens to undermine the success of campaigns that have been keeping legal cigarettes out of the hands of minors.
And the growth of the untaxed cigarettes, which sell illegally for as little as $6 a carton with no age checks, is growing so quickly that a committee of community groups formed yesterday to try to curb the problem.
The Kingston Community Action Committee on Illegal Cigarettes is
made up of community and youth groups and includes many of the people who worked on the Operation ID initiative that launched an education campaign for retailers.
The committee doesn't have a strategy for stemming the trade in the black-market smokes, but it hopes to educate residents about how big a problem the unregulated and untaxed trade is becoming, and put pressure on governments to take action.
"The goal of this campaign is not to target the 55-year-old who might smoke two packs a day and sees the contraband cigarettes as a way to save some money," said Ann Viau, a communications professional who is helping set up similar groups in Oshawa, Verdun and Laval, Que., all communities on the cigarette-smuggling route that have been affected by the flood of cheap smokes.
"What people don't realize is how many of these cigarettes are getting into the hands of people who are unable to buy tobacco from a legal retailer and how it is undermining the tobacco-prevention programs for youth that are already in place."
Researchers went to the unofficial smoking areas around Kingston high schools earlier this year and collected more than 1,300 butts from the sites near nine schools.
Researchers said 34% of the butts they collected were unbranded and had unmarked filters identical to those sold in bags on reserves -and by individuals who buy the bags from smoke shacks on reserves and resell them to make a profit.
The survey also found that the use of illegal tobacco in this region is 10% higher than the provincial average, as the contraband tobacco is more available. An increasing number of smokers report buying untaxed cigarettes more often.
Tony Gargaro, organizer of yesterday's meeting and the earlier Operation ID initiative, said the committee has no answers but is looking for ways to educate people about what is going on.
"This is early days, and we just hope to brainstorm and come up with ideas," he said.
Viau said the committee doesn't want to send a message that contraband tobacco is bad and that young people should be smoking legal and taxed cigarettes. Instead, it wants to point out how the black market smokes are escaping the legal safeguards being enforced by retailers.
"There are no warnings on the bags, there are no age checks from the people who sell them," she said, "and they're going right into the hands of underage people and throwing all the good work we've done keeping tobacco out of the hands of minors right out the window."
She added: "Our message is that smoking is dangerous, and we want to raise awareness of this issue so it's no longer acceptable."
All three levels of government need to act to halt the flow of contraband -it is a sensitive political issue as the cigarettes originate on native reserves here and in the United States -but Viau said petitions and other campaigns will probably be launched to pressure government to do something.
"Government needs to act, and people need to tell them that they want them to act."