Cheap smokes from Tyendinaga Territory are contributing factors in a provincewide problem, say health officials.
An equation involving cheap prices and easy access equals more than 60,000 Ontario students smoking contraband cigarettes, says the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco.
The number, a result of a recent survey conducted by OCAT, should prompt the provincial government to revisit laws surrounding tobacco regulations in Ontario, specifically those directed at the sale and distribution of tobacco products by shops and smoke shacks on First Nations territories. The campaign's director, Michael Perley, said the Quinte region would benefit from tougher regulations on the availability of contraband cigarettes from Tyendinaga Territory.
"Young and old are accessing contraband cigarettes and you have to ask where the strategy is to handle the problem," Perley said. "When you look at both the provincial and federal governments and question where their contraband strategies are, you'll see that there aren't any. There are some isolated, small changes that have been made but when you look for something comprehensive there's nothing there. That is just incomprehensible."
Perley said there are two major attractive features when it comes to contraband cigarettes: the price and the availability. He said local residents need only drive east on Old Highway 2 to become inundated with the availability of cheap cigarettes in the Quinte area.
There are more than a dozen shacks and shops selling smokes on the territory and there are reports there is even a clandestine factory cranking them out.
Dr. Richard Schabas, medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties, did not disagree with Perley, though he noted the incidents involving contraband cigarettes appear to be decreasing.
"We seem to be seeing less of a problem with the contraband cigarettes since they stepped up enforcement efforts in the Cornwall area," he said. "We know they've been very active with their anti-smuggling task force for the last few months in preventing these things from coming into the country in the first place."
However, Schabas said more still needs to be done and referred to suggestions made by OCAT on how contraband cigarettes can be dealt with by both provincial and federal governments.
Perley's group -- which consists of the Canadian Cancer Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, the Ontario Lung Association and the Ontario Medical Association -- says there are steps that could be taken to decrease the availability of contraband cigarettes to the public.
"We really need to stop allowing raw materials used to make contraband cigarettes to be supplied," he said. "We need to prevent those shipments from getting to people who don't have licences."
Municipal police forces should also be given additional resources to enforce restrictions as well as reforming the provincial quota system under which products from Canadian companies are supplied, tax-free, to First Nations.
Like Perley, Schabas also said the cigarettes create problems for anti-tobacco initiatives.
"We've been saying for some time that this is a serious issue," Schabas said. "It really undermines tobacco-prevention efforts when young people can buy cigarettes cheaply because access to cheap cigarettes is the biggest determinate in youth smoking."
Schabas said he would not term himself an "expert" in the approptriate legal mechanisms to reduce contraband cigarettes but agreed with OCAT's suggestions. He said their recommendations are "reasonable."
There's another side to the problem which, Schabas said, is often not considered but needs to be addressed.
"The biggest losers in this whole transaction are the young people on First Nation reserves like Tyendinaga because they're the ones who have the easiest access to cheap cigarettes. We know that smoking rates in aboriginal communities are very high and we also know they're facing an epidemic of diabetes ... You put all that together and you've got an impending health tragedy," he said.