Shucking Oysters: Inhale This
By Alex Allen
Remember every road trip, sitting in the back of our family cars (without seat belts on) breathing in our parent’s cigarette fumes? Remember when it was cool to smoke? Remember when they were less than $5 a pack? Different times. If coffin nails are so harmful, then why can people still buy them?
Once again follow the money. There’s nothing in this world that doesn’t have some monetary umbilical cord attached to it – even when it is inherently bad for you. The Canadian federal government obviously know that smoking tobacco is unhealthy, and yet they continue to sell darts and fags, because they make a lot of money.
Instead of just banning tobacco, come August 1st, the government has introduced more new graphic warnings that will adorn the generic drab brown (Pantone 448) packages. This is the fourth incarnation of graphic warnings since Canada became the first country to introduce them in 2001. The new images depict a range of health issues – from the dangers of second-hand smoke for children (and hello, dogs in cars, people), to diseases such as throat, lung, tongue and mouth cancers.
Did you know that cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals? Formaldehyde and benzene, toxic chemicals used in industrial manufacturing and cyanide and arsenic, highly toxic agents that damage blood cells, to name a few.
It’s clear that the images are working on those who have never smoked and over 300,000 Canadians who smoked in 2023 quit in 2024. Data also shows smoking dropping to an “all-time low” of less than 2% for youth in 2024. Definitely not cool anymore.
David Hammond, a professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, said the “scary and frightening” images and statistics on cigarette boxes are still having an impact. “But I will say that tweaking these warnings, changing the pictures, changing the wording, is likely going to have far less impact than other measures.”
Two of the images are being reused. One is of Barb Tarbox, a 42-year-old woman from Alberta who died of lung and brain cancer in 2003. The image shows her skeletal body near the end of her life with a cigarette still in hand, paired with the words “highly addictive.” The other is of bloody urine in a toilet bowl, “27 per cent of kidney cancer victims die within five years.” Six new messages are also being printed – in 8 point Lucida Sans Serif – on individual cigarettes, such as “Poison in every puff” and “Cigarettes cause impotence.”
In the UK, anyone born on or after January 1, 2009 will be banned from buying tobacco products as of 2027, a move aimed at preventing future generations from becoming addicted to nicotine. In Canada, the government is “monitoring measures taken by like-minded countries to reduce youth smoking,” however, they have “no plans to introduce a similar prohibition at this time.”
The Canadian cigarette and tobacco wholesaling industry made over $8 billion in revenue in 2026. The profit number would be even larger, if not for contraband tobacco, which accounted for over 38% of the 18 billion cigarettes smoked in Canada last year. In 2023-24, the average Canadian smoker paid $1,629 in tobacco taxes, with the government collecting over $5 billion in tax revenue – a split between $2 billion for the federal government and $3 billion collectively for provincial and territorial governments. By comparison, our federal and provincial governments make roughly $13 billion a year from alcohol sales. And now billions more from cannabis dispensaries.
Instead of graphic images, they should just print the amount of taxes each cigarette package is giving back to Ottawa. That might be an incentive. I quit smoking many moons ago, not because of my health but because of the price – $3 a pack. Today, a cheap pack of smokes at the store can set you back $25.
So, why can’t we just ban tobacco completely? Save a few lives and lower healthcare costs versus personal choice and lost tax revenue. Or like marijuana, people could grow three tobacco plants and roll their own. Follow the money. Canadian tobacco companies are formidable, constantly lobbying governments on issues like taxation and product regulations. Imperial Tobacco should have their own embassy in Ottawa given the amount of lobbying they participate in.
Now the tobacco industry are focusing on e-cigarette and vaping rules. Nicotine lobbying arms are heavily pressuring Health Canada, arguing that strict flavour restrictions (as in mint and menthol only, not candy flavours) push adult users back to cigarettes and encourage illegal markets. Both Rothmans and Benson and Hedges maintain that these products are a safer alternative for people looking to quit smoking cigarettes.
Research from The Johns Hopkins University published in October 2021 revealed 1,500 unique chemical ingredients in vape products, most of which are not even identified. Among those they could identify were several potentially harmful substances, including caffeine, three chemicals never previously found in e-cigarettes, a pesticide and two flavourings linked with possible toxic effects and respiratory irritation. Dr. Hassan Mir, a cardiologist and medical director of smoking cessation at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, said some of his patients are vaping the nicotine equivalent of 100 cigarettes a day, without realizing. Safer?
Smokers often question why there are not warnings on alcohol. In fact, a bill currently before the senate is proposing adding warnings on alcoholic packaging in Canada. We will see how the alcohol industry swallows that. Why not just put the iconic BC ferry slippery surface graphic on everything? That’ll cover the basics, because isn’t everything a slippery slope these days?
