According to the spokesperson for the Coalition for Tobacco Control, Flory Doucas, Quebec might take inspiration from certain measures recently adopted by other jurisdictions in order to fight once morest smoking.
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Smoking cigarettes or vaping will be prohibited in public places, including parks and sidewalks in the Town of Banff as of February 1, 2023.
Although the reality of this city is not the same as that of a province, Quebec might take inspiration from certain measures that are in force there.
“If there are measures that we should imitate in Quebec and which are very urgent, it might not be this measure, but others, such as increasing the tobacco tax, believes Ms. Doucas. . It is almost twice as high in Alberta as in Quebec.”
While a pack of cigarettes is taxed at regarding $3 in Quebec, this amount rises to more than $5 in Alberta.
“The tax is the most effective tool we have to reduce smoking,” continues the spokesperson. The last increase in this tax dates back to 2014.
New Zealand is also a country that might inspire Quebec according to Flory Doucas.
In addition to prohibiting minors from smoking cigarettes, this country is gradually reducing the concentration of nicotine present in legal cigarettes, reducing the amount of nicotine per cigarette from between 10 to 15 mg to only 0.8 mg.
“They will become non-addictive,” she says. Within two years, smokers will no longer be able to satisfy their nicotine addiction with these cigarettes. The United States also intends to move forward with a measure like this, but it is not yet known when.
In addition to these two measures, there is also the reduction in points of sale, which will soon drop from 6,000 to only 600.
“New Zealand will play on supply, but also on demand by raising the age of purchase. Raising the purchase age is a bit symbolic at first, but it has a longer-term effect.
While there are a little less than a million smokers in Quebec, the government must stand up to the tobacco lobby for government measures to have an effect, pleads Ms. Doucas.
“We might do more if it weren’t for the fact that the industry is always adapting to our laws and thwarting them,” she explains. We have seen this in relation to vaping. There is an urgent need to act in Quebec to ban flavors as other jurisdictions have done.”
The spokesperson would like to see better regulation of electronic cigarettes, too.
“Right now the biggest market for e-cigarettes are young people who have never smoked and therefore don’t benefit from them,” she continues. This is why we must act to supervise them more adequately.”
