Province needs to show support to ban flavoured cigarillos

Just a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed a ban on cigarillos. It took months of pressure from federal and provincial NDP, as well as a variety of health groups such as the Canadian Cancer Society and a federal election campaign, but it's a good step in the right direction.

Nova Scotians know all to well that the Prime Minister's word is no guarantee, so Nova Scotia Health Promotion and Protection Minister Barry Barnett should follow the lead of his Federal Conservative colleagues and support my provincial NDP legislation banning flavoured cigarillos.

It's a shame Nova Scotia families are still waiting for leadership from the provincial government on this issue.

I wonder, since I introduced my private member's bill five months ago, how many children have tasted these flavoured tobacco products, or even worse, became addicted to them?

It is imperative that the Nova Scotia government bring forward the NDP's legislation or introduce their own legislation that quickly bans the sale of flavoured cigarillos. The importance of this legislation is underscored by the fact that in Atlantic Canada, youth between the ages of 15 to 19 are 3.75 times more likely to smoke cigarillos than those 25 years of age and older.

The Harvard School of Public Health, sifted through seven million internal tobacco industry documents spanning 30 years and in 2005 concluded flavoured tobacco products were being marketed to young smokers using "colourful and stylish packaging and exploiting adolescents' attraction to candy flavours."

In 2006, tobacco use in Nova Scotia resulted in 1,730 deaths, $220 million in direct costs to the health care system and $550 million in indirect costs. While there are challenges to helping smokers quit, today's question is can we afford to let our young people start in the first place.

I encourage all Nova Scotians to go on the record by writing to the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party, Liberal Party or the Progressive Conservative Party asking for support for this bill.

As a united province, we can make Nova Scotia a leader in tobacco control and secure a better future for today's youth and today's families.

For more information about this topic or any issue of importance in the community, please call me at my constituency office 464-3805 or stop by for a visit at 63 Tacoma Dr., Suite 303, in Dartmouth.

weeklydartmouth@hfxnews.ca