Pretty packages and tasty flavours are being used to entice young people to take up smoking.
That’s the view of New Westminster MLA Judy Darcy and some youth who are calling for a ban on flavoured tobacco products that come in a variety of fruit, ice cream and candy flavours, including peach, chocolate and cherry.
“This is creating a resurgence in smokers in my hometown. I’ve seen it,” said Douglas College student Brandon Eyre, who moved to New Westminster from Grand Forks. “As the older generation starts to quit smoking, I’ve seen most of the kids in high school take up smoking.”
Eyre suffered from asthma as a child, so never wanted to try smoking or didn’t have to deal with friends who pressured him to give it a try. He said flavoured tobacco products target young smokers.
“The flavour and the smell is very sweet,” he said. “It’s very strong. It smells like candy. The peach smells like a peach, a peach candy. It’s quite surprising.”
Eyre noted that many flavoured tobacco products don’t even look like they are cigarettes or cigarillos.
“Most of the packaging is either made to look like it’s candy or makeup,” he said. “It’s very easily hidden, which I know from a number of my friends that their parents didn’t know they smoked.”
Most troubling for Eyre is that many of the flavoured tobacco products don’t have warning labels, unlike regular cigarette packages that have warnings and photos showing some of the devastating effects of smoking.
“On the bigger packages of flavoured tobacco there is a warning, but because flavoured tobacco is usually sold in individual cigars or cigarettes, somehow it falls through a loophole in the legislations,” Eyre said. “It’s weird because it’s just as bad.”
New Westminster MLA Judy Darcy is calling on the provincial government to ban the sale of flavoured tobacco in B.C. In April, she introduced a member’s bill in the legislature, which would amend the original Tobacco Control Act to prohibit the sale of flavoured tobacco products
Darcy, who invited local youth to attend a June 10 press conference at her New Westminster constituency office, said recent statistics show that 53 per cent of young people who smoked used flavoured tobacco.
“They go from peach to chocolate to pear, cherry – you name it,” she said. “They smell really sweet. They taste really nice so you don’t do the heavy coughing you normally do with tobacco. It makes it easier to smoke. It smells better. They don’t look like tobacco. When you see the display, it is really compelling. They can look like a lip-gloss, lip pencil, chewing gum, a tin of mints. It is absolutely targeting youth.”
Darcy, the B.C. NDP’s health critic, said current legislation doesn’t do enough to protect youth from the harmful effects of tobacco and nicotine. Alberta has banned the sale of flavoured tobacco products, and Ontario and Manitoba are debating similar legislation.
“The statistics on people dying of cancer are still very high. Six thousand people die every year of cancer in B.C. Tobacco is the single biggest cause of cancer-related deaths,” she said. “Every year, 30,000 young people start up smoking.”
Saba Fatemi said the issue of cancer has been close to her heart ever since her grandmother died from the disease a few years ago. That inspired her to join the Cancer Society Club at New Westminster Secondary School and serve as its leader in Grade 11 and 12.
“We were trying to raise awareness in high school about all these different carcinogens and cancer among youth,” she said. “While we were doing that it was shocking to see there were people coming in and doing the opposite and luring in youth, using colour, attractive tastes, things that make a product look less dangerous and less threatening to youth.”
Fatemi, a 19-year-old who graduated from New Westminster Secondary last year, said many young people start smoking because they think it is cool or someone they know smokes and they decide to give it a try. She said the flavoured tobacco products are intended to draw in young smokers and the smaller packages (and lower cost) also make it more affordable for youth.
“If you are already hooked on it as an adult, you don’t need a flavour to keep you going,” she said. “If you are a kid, that tasty flavour or good smell encourages them to smoke that first time.”
Eyre has seen teenagers smoking flavoured tobacco products around high schools.
“I think because it is such a new thing, flavoured tobacco, not a lot of adults are aware of it so it’s easy to smoke flavoured tobacco out in the open because you don’t smell the tobacco. I think teenagers are less afraid to smoke it because they are less afraid they are going to get caught,” he told The Record. “It will generate smoke, you can still see it – but it smells nice. It’s a pleasant smell.”
The Canadian Cancer Society has called for federal and provincial legislation to tackle the issue of flavoured tobacco products, including a ban of flavoured cigarillos. Those are small cigars that are packaged to look like candy, lipstick and markers.
Eyre would like to see flavoured tobacco products banned so people like his little brother are never tempted to take it up.
“He is 10 now. He is coming up to the age I expect kids to try things,” he said. “I am worried, because they are so sweet and they are so candy-like – he loves candy – that it will be an easy transition for him.”
