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Canadian Cancer Society & the tobacco industry

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Richard attended a breakfast presentation by the Canadian Cancer Society on some new tricks the tobacco industry have introduced to encourage smoking. Hard to believe but they are now promoting flavored tobacco products which, through their packaging and appearance, are targeting youth.

The majority of new tobacco users are under the age of 18. Many categories of tobacco products are heavily flavoured, including:

  • Cigarillos
  • Water pipe tobacco
  • Smokeless tobacco, and
  • Menthol cigarettes

Flavours reduce the harsh effects of cigarette smoke, making it easier for youth who may be experimenting with smoking to become addicted. The Cancer Society strongly believes that swift action should be taken to ban all flavoured tobacco products in order to reduce tobacco use among youth and, ultimately, tobacco related deaths.

Each year, tobacco use kills over 6,000 British Columbians and costs the BC economy approximately $2.3 billion. Smoking causes about 30% of cancer deaths and 85% of lung cancers.

Please join take action by asking your MLA to ban all flavoured tobacco products in BC. Click here to send an email to your MLA: http://takeaction.cancer.ca. A copy of your letter will also be sent to the Hon. Terry Lake, Minister of Health, and Judy Darcy, NDP Health Critic.

Please also consider tweeting http://takeaction.cancer.ca to encourage your contacts to get involved. Please include the Cancer Society’s handle, @cancersocietybc in your tweet.

Thank you for taking action!

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