Contraband cigs blamed for kids smoking

The wide availability of cheap contraband cigarettes is undermining efforts to get people to turn away from the cancer-causing habit, anti-tobacco activists say.

With more than 60,0000 Ontario students reportedly smoking the illegal cigarettes, several health organizations are calling on the provincial and federal governments to step up their efforts.

Michael Perley, director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco (OCAT), said Thursday that contraband tobacco products manufactured on native reserves sell for as little as $10-$15 for a plastic bag containing 200 cigarettes.

The lowest legitimate price found for that many cigarettes would be $50-$55, he said.

“The First Nations issue is sensitive — we need to negotiate and engage with First Nations — but that should not prevent us from having a very broad campaign in our communities to restrict the supply and dissemination of this product,” he said.

Dr. Marco Di Buono, director of research at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, said smoking currently accounts for 45% of heart disease in men and 40% of heart disease in women under the age of 65.

Most smokers start before age 20, and half of those who do will die prematurely from lung or heart disease and cancer, he said.

After years of falling smoking rates, the trend has flat-lined, he said.

Knowing that the price of cigarettes is important to young people considering smoking, the cheap and ready supply of contraband cigarettes is being implicated.

“We have to ask ourselves — we have waged a war but are we losing the battle,” Di Buono said.

Perley said anti-smoking groups are asking the Ontario government to reform the provincial quota system under which products from licensed Canadian tobacco companies are supplied tax-free to First Nations and to launch a campaign using social media to reach young people.

Leslie O’Leary, a spokesman for Ontario Revenue Minister John Wilkinson, said the government has enacted enforcement measures under the Tobacco Tax Act over the past five years.

Convictions under the Tobacco Tax Act more than tripled between 2007-08 and 2008-09, she said.

About 74 million illegal cigarettes, 294,000 untaxed cigars and 32 million grams of fine-cut tobacco have been seized by ministry investigators and inspectors over the past two years, she said.