Smoking or non-smoking?

I’m not a smoker, and I despise the scent of cigarette smoke. Indeed, possibly the only thing I loathe more than the stench of cigarettes is the bilious aroma of pot, which if you live in Vancouver, as I do, is unavoidable in certain parts of town.

I want to be crystal clear on the following point: if I were king for a day, I would ban all smoking, period. I don’t care how “medicinal” your pot is; I don’t care how addicted you are to nicotine; I don’t care how nice your pipe smells or how tasty your Cuban cigar is with that glass of port – if I’m king for a day, boom, gone. Never to be seen again.

While I have little sympathy for either smokers or tobacco companies, I nevertheless feel bothered by yesterdays Supreme Court decision that allows provinces to sue tobacco companies for smoking-related healthcare costs.

Let’s be clear – the Supreme Court was only speaking to the constitutionality of the law, not, and let me emphasize this again, not about whether or not said attempts to sue will be successful; but I have a problem with is the galling hypocrisy of the provinces suing tobacco companies for smoking-related healthcare costs.

This might seem to be a paradoxical position, but for at least twenty years, and possibly longer but I’m only going by my own personal experience, cigarette companies have been telling people “hey, our product is poisonous and might kill you!” That it was government regulation that required these warning labels is beside the point – the labels have been there! Let’s also not forget the millions of dollars that the federal government has spent on ads and education initiatives to tell people (and especially teens) that smoking is bad for you. Endless studies have shown the potential and real harm that result from smoking.

So, there is no excuse for any individual to claim ignorance of the risks – smoking is bad for you. Not might be, will be, or could be – IS! It costs our healthcare system a lot of money to treat people’s smoking-related illnesses.

But wait a minute. Governments at both the federal and provincial level have been complicit with the continued sale of tobacco. They collect huge amounts of taxes from cigarettes – billions of dollars annually. Some pundits claim that the amount we spend on healthcare for smoking-related illness is actually pretty close to the amount of taxes we already collect on tobacco.

Furthermore, cigarettes are trivial to get. Compared to beer, wine, and spirits, which are only available at government operated liquor stores or specialty private shops, cigarettes are available almost everywhere – corner stores, gas stations, grocery stores, … The list is almost endless. If the provincial government made cigarettes as difficult to buy as booze, I might have more sympathy with their attempts to sue.

I don’t like the tobacco companies and I wish smoking would go away, but this is hypocrisy writ large.