Tobacco Control in B.C.

Since 1997, the province of British Columbia has conducted an aggressive strategy to protect everyone, especially young people, from the harmful effects of tobacco.

We are doing this for many reasons:

• More than half a million British Columbians are addicted to tobacco.
  
  
  
  
• 558,941 British Columbians over the age of 15 years smoke – equivalent to 16% of all British Columbians.
• 61,395 or 22% of those who smoke are between the ages of 20-24 years.
• Of the British Columbians who misuse tobacco, 55,000 are Aboriginal
  people.
• More than half of Aboriginal teenagers (54 percent) misuse tobacco, with rates increasing to 65 per cent among those aged 20 to 24 years. Among Aboriginal children, 12 per cent of boys and 7 percent of girls use chewing tobacco, some as young as 5 to 9 years old
• Over 5,600 people die each year in BC of tobacco-related illnesses.
• Tobacco control and reduction strategies have been proven to work.

BC’s strategy includes prevention programs, cessation programs (to help people quit smoking) and protection from tobacco through legislation and the support of tobacco control bylaws.

Our strategy is working. British Columbia has the lowest overall smoking rate in Canada. The smoking rate among BC youth has decreased each year since we introduced our strategy and now stands at 16 per cent.

Preventing young people from starting to smoke

Every 13 seconds, someone dies of a smoking-related illness. In fact, more people die from smoking than from accidents, alcohol, drugs, suicide, AIDS, and homicides combined. In BC, that’s 5,600 people each year.

In addition to the more obvious illnesses caused by smoking – lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema – there are other less known illnesses. For example:

• Tongue and mouth cancers are primarily caused by smoking. Smoking makes it harder for your saliva to remove germs in your mouth, so you end up with stained teeth, bad breath and a higher risk of gum disease.
• Smokers and former smokers have a 50% higher risk of developing cataracts which can leave you blind.
• Psoriasis, a disfiguring red and silver rash, is twice as likely to occur in smokers.

Tobacco companies need new smokers to stay in business. Since statistics tell us that most smokers began to smoke around age 16, it seems obvious that tobacco companies will target young people as their new customers.

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