Darwinian Selection

"We've got to do something."
"I'm not an academic, not an an advocate, but when I have the data in my hands, I feel a moral responsibility to make it known." 
Rob Schwartz, executive director, Ontario Tobacco Research Unit

"We need to bend that curve [of societal smoking cessation].  There's a sense in some communities that ... 'Well, we've been there done that, it's fixed'. But the data don't support that."
Dr. Elizabeth Eisenhauer, oncologist, Queen's University, Kingston

"They're just engaging in strange, authoritarian fantasies. The ideas are harmful, they are a distraction from thinking about things that will actually work."
Clive Bates, (former) head, Action on Smoking and Health, U.K.

Dusan Vranic / The Associated Press file photo

A bill to be introduced by the Liberal government will not only ban smoking in outdoor places such as restaurant patios but also ban sale of tobacco on college and university campuses, among other things

Re-thinking strategy. The  struggle to inform and educate the public about the well-enough-known harms of tobacco to the human body has in fact resulted in a wide public acknowledgement that smoking is a leading cause of serious health conditions, from cancers to heart attacks. Smoking cessation programs have succeeded in helping smokers surrender their addiction to tobacco. The incidence of nicotine-caused morbidity has dramatically decreased over the years.

The general public is well versed in the harms done to it by active and passive smoke inhalation by  this notoriously dangerous carcinogen. Yet a hard-core segment of the population addicted to tobacco use in its various forms has been unable to reduce their dependency on smoking and remain at risk within society. And another vulnerable group is young people who view smoking as cool and a tool of defiance against society's accepted mores.

Ed Kaiser / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO

A study has found that smoking is dropping among Ontario youth. In 2014, 6 per cent of students in grades and 11 and 12 — an estimated 24,500 pupils — had smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days, compared to 12 per cent in 2005

Through a number of working expedients such as raising taxes on cigarettes, to legislating graphic warning labels and public smoking bans, governments at all levels have succeeded in radically reducing smoking rates in Canada from its 1965  high of 50 percent to the current 15 percent dependence and usage; a signal success by any measure, most particularly the measure of cancer rate reduction. That success rate, however was reached by 2009 and has since not shifted downward.

The realization has set in that if the full round  of control measures recommended by the World Health Organization, such as even steeper tax hikes on tobacco products, and resorting to plain cigarette packaging for example, were to be implemented, the number of dedicated smokers would still fall at most to about 12 percent by 2035, according to Rob Schwartz.

In Canada, the aspiration is to arrive at "five by 35", interpreted as a five percent smoking rate hoped to be achievable by the year 2035. Academic  researchers and experts representing health charities along with anti-smoking activists and government representatives are set to meet at a fall 2016 conference to discuss the situation of further reaching out to convince millions of people who remain smokers, to discard their self-injurious habit.

It is habit that costs society dearly, from lost workplace hours, to heavy financial burdens on a universal healthcare system, let alone the tragedy of preventable early deaths. Endgame tactics are to be discussed such as mandating lower levels of addictive nicotine manufactured into cigarettes,  altering the pH balance for greater acridity, limiting sales through tobacco licensing, or prohibiting those born after 2000 from smoking altogether.

These are the proposed remedies born of desperation. And, as pointed out by Clive Bates, formerly chief of Britain's chief anti-smoking group, would lead to resistance, ushering smokers toward contraband products on a grand scale. Educating and encouraging people to take steps to protect themselves from the dread consequences of serious health impacts is one thing; imposing restrictions thus cutting off free choice to those who find a gamble with the quality and longevity of their lives a personal matter, entirely something else.

One life: yours to live it to best advantage; yours to defy the odds and live it as found personally pleasing and damn the consequences.