Smoking kills.
Its a powerful and true statement. However, despite educating people about the consequences and dangers, despite Big Tobacco publicly addressing smoking’s adverse health effects, nicotine manipulation and the impact of secondhand smoke – it appears the battle against Big Tobacco is far from over.
Smoking Is Still Big Business
While the number of Canadian smokers has steadily decreased since 2007, millions are still lighting up.
- Canada’s 4.6-million smokers have about 15 cigarettes per day
- This adds up to trillions of cigarettes sold every year.
- About one-third of Canadian youth have also picked up the habit favoring mild, mint flavored cigarettes.
Most people start smoking as teens. Some people just wanted to try it, others thought it was the cool thing to do. Teens are a major target for Big Tobacco through the internet, a largely unregulated source of entertainment.
Graphic Health Warnings
In the meantime, the number of countries requiring graphic health warnings on cigarette packs is growing rapidly. Philip Morris International one of the worlds biggest tobacco companies, which owns the Marlboro brand, has a habit of suing countries over laws requiring health warnings on cigarette packaging.
In these instances, the tobacco company branding is replaced with disturbing images meant to serve as a health warning.
Still people continue to smoke.
Now Serving: Smoking Bans
Many anti-smoking efforts have been, and continue to be, made across Canada and it seems the efforts are working.
There is some form of smoking ban in every province and territory in Canada, though some jurisdictions have taken a much more heavy-handed approach.
Smoking has been banned in public spaces around Canada for some time now and with the exception of a few territories it is illegal to smoke in any vehicle that is carrying a child.
Still Big Tobacco remains big business.
Brad Robitaille, a managing partner at Greg Monforton & Partners, is the founding partner of Tobacco Recovery Lawyers. For more than seven years an international team of lawyers have worked hard to fight on behalf of provinces and territories to recover healthcare costs associated with the treatment of smoking related illness.