By Brady Bateman

Teen smoking concerns; but P.A. praised

Nov 1, 2018 | 2:00 PM

According to new statistics released from Health Canada Saskatchewan teenagers are smoking cigarettes at an alarming rate.

The Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs survey revealed 22 per cent of Saskatchewan teenagers aged 15 to 19 have smoked cigarettes, compared to the national average of only eight per cent. The Canadian Cancer Society believes the fault is partially on the Saskatchewan government, and their lack of updates to anti-smoking measures in the province.

“Our reaction is that we are not surprised that our smoking rates for youths are as high as they are, because we have not been doing the things we need to be doing to address those smoking rates,” Donna Pasiechnik, a Saskatchewan health policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society told paNOW. “Our tobacco control laws are woefully out of date, we have not had any new legislation since 2009 despite all these new issues that have come up and as a result we’ve seen that national average go down and Saskatchewan’s go up.”

Pasiechnik added she believes there are a multitude of control measures which could be put in place to significantly decrease the number of teens in the province who use tobacco products such as a higher tax rate on tobacco products, changes to laws on flavoured tobacco, warnings placed on individual cigarettes and informing youth of the fact they are being targeted by tobacco companies.

“When you think that most people who start smoking are teenagers, and half of those will become life-long addicts, we’re going to have a serious problem here, and it’s going to put a terrible strain on our healthcare system,” Pasiechnik said. “I applaud the City of Prince Albert for adopting a smoking bylaw that will ban smoking in many outdoor places — that is leadership in Prince Albert.”

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The survey, which was conducted by Statistics Canada on behalf of Health Canada from October, 2016 to June, 2017, also revealed that the smoking rate for people in Saskatchewan aged 15 is around 18 per cent, which is higher than the national average of 15 per cent.

The survey showed Saskatchewan leads the country with the highest rate of teen smokers, followed by Prince Edward Island’s rate of 15.8 per cent and Manitoba’s rate of 14.2 per cent. The lowest average rate was found in New Brunswick where the percentage of smokers aged 15 to 19 was 5.8 per cent.

“If you’re concerned call your MLA,” Pasiechnik said. “Tell them you want action on youth smoking rates, and that it’s time Saskatchewan’s laws be changed to, at the very least, match the rest of the country.”

Pasiechnik added she applauds the Saskatchewan government for the smoke-free public housing policy recently implemented in August throughout the province, which makes all public housing within the province smoke-free.

Another growing concern for Pasiechnik is e-cigarettes and the flavours that are often accompanied with them. She believes that flavoured nicotine products need to be heavily regulated within the country, in order to make the products less appealing to Canada’s youth.

“I’m not sure that most kids really take the health message as seriously as they should, they’re kids and they feel invincible,” Pasiechnik said. “I think a better approach with educating kids is to talk about how they are being targeted by the tobacco industry with flavoured products, with advertising and now with the e-cig market. I think kids are smart and do not want to be duped or taken advantage of.”

Pasiechnik added she does not believe there is one solution to stop youths from smoking, but rather a large number of incremental steps that need to be taken to drastically reduce teen smoking rates.

brady.bateman@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @TheDigitalBirdy