I read the BC Strategy on Tobacco recently. Apparently, BC has the lowest smoking rate in Canada (with an average smoking rate of 16% of the population versus 21% for the country). However, BC ranks second lowest when it comes to North America, after Utah. Why Utah? Large Mormon population is your answer.There are certain populations within BC where smoking is more prevalent than the average quoted above, such as aboriginal populations and youth aged 20-24. These populations need more targeted attention.
Why has BC been more successful than other provinces at decreasing the smoking rate?
Multiple reasons: targeting and educating youth before they even begin tobacco use, creating AND enforcing legislation that restricts access of minors to tobacco, launching awareness campaigns to educate the general public and “denormalize” smoking, and supporting individuals who have decided to quit. Also, forcing tobacco companies to publicly report all the ingredients in their products has made people aware of all the additives and chemicals they inhale when smoking.
For the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics, BC plans to embrace the Tobacco Free Sports (TFS) initiative by promoting a tobacco-free sport environment. Sounds good in theory, I agree, but with people coming from all over the world, especially from areas where smoking is endemic and smoking laws are lax, a tobacco-free atmosphere is going to be a challenge to enforce. Here’s some useful educational material to get into if you want to keep reading on this topic.
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This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 10:53 pm and is filed under City, Controversy, Drugz, Health, Justice, Legal, Literature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
It’s sad that this initiative is considered a “special project” for the olympic events and not something that is systemically instituted all the time or, better yet, a few decades ago. I’ve never understood why smoking was such a fashionable thing in society — I suspect that through some logical leap disease and smoke are fetishized because smoke it such an alien thing to our bodies. Perhaps we fetishize it because it is so ‘other’.
Thanks for the comment Jark. Yeah, I don’t understand our society’s previous fascination with smoking either… It seems smoking does have some benefits (e.g. decrease risk of Parkinson’s disease). BUT, compare this to the exhaustive list of harmful things smoking does to you and it is like placing an elephant on one end of a see-saw, and trying to counterbalance his weight with an ant. I kid you not- almost every disease I learn about in med school has smoking listed as a risk factor (from obvious ones like lung cancer and heart disease to less obvious ones, like rheumatoid arthritis). Anyways, this is turning into more of a post than a comment so I’ll stop here.
Interesting point: “benefits of smoking” is a strange neologism. It’s crazy how we bring it on ourselves with the dragon. I had a smoke last nite, reading a bunch and it was food… even the critics are absurd, even the smart kids contradict themselves. I should be judged for my dragon ways. I should be judged by my younger self who was so much more idealistic and pure. Should I revert? Should I step back to my former self that had these things in check? What went wrong?