October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - One woman in nine will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. One in 27 will die from it
MONTREAL, Sept. 30 /CNW Telbec/ - October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the Canadian Cancer Society takes this opportunity to reiterate that many women are alive and well today because their breast cancer was detected and treated early.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2005/01/c6426.html
Tobacco taxes best spent on health
Top court clears way for lawsuits Sept. 30.
It's laughable that the Supreme Court of Canada has cleared the way for the British Columbia government to sue cigarette companies for the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses. How do they plan on collecting? How will they determine which of the thousands of annual cancer patients are victims of tobacco and second-hand smoke? Perhaps the government should first volunteer to redirect all sales taxes collected on the sale of tobacco products to the health-care system of that province before they initiate lawsuits. Not doing so would be enormously hypocritical since they are making money off the backs of addicts just as the tobacco giants are.
Jennifer Chalklin, Brampton
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1
&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1128117012241
Governments 'hypocritical,' say tobacco companies
Jeff Rud Times Colonist staff Friday, September 30, 2005
The Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council says the B.C. and federal governments have been like "senior partners" in their industry over the last three decades.
That means British Columbia's lawsuit to recover health-care costs related to smoking is hypocritical, council spokesman Dave Laundy said Thursday.
Laundy's comments followed a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada decision that clears the way for the B.C. government to go to trial with a multibillion-dollar civil suit against tobacco companies.
"Governments are the senior partners really in this industry,'' Laundy said, adding that last year the federal and provincial governments collected more than $9 billion in cigarette taxes.
Since 1970, governments in this country have reaped more than $150 billion in tobacco taxes -- about 13 times more than tobacco manufacturers combined have earned on their products, Laundy said. A settlement between tobacco companies and governments in the U.S. produced a $245-billion settlement in the late 1990s. But Laundy said the situation is different in Canada because governments are much more "proactive" in regulating the tobacco industry here.
"We have a right to operate as legal companies under the rules and regulations that are set by government,'' Laundy said. "It's somewhat hypocritical for governments to be setting these ground rules and then turning around and suing the industry which basically complies with the law.''
"Governments have been much more proactive in Canada in overseeing the tobacco industry,'' he added. "So the role of governments in the development and implementation of tobacco policy will be relevant to this lawsuit and will be fully explored.''
But B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal said the lawsuit is really "about how we can attempt to hold the tobacco companies liable for their misrepresentations and all of those things that we heard about from the 1950s onward.'' However, the council believes that the B.C. legislation cleared by Thursday's ruling essentially stacks the deck against tobacco manufacturers.
"Government should not be able to change rules in advance of a lawsuit to make it easier for them to win and harder for the defendant to defend [itself,] " Laundy said.
But B.C. Health Minister George Abbott said that's not the case with this legislation.
"The Supreme Court of Canada, by a 9-0 margin, has concluded that the deck is not stacked against the tobacco industry, that there's every reason to expect that tobacco will get a fair trial in future civil action,'' he said.
The B.C. suit includes three major Canadian companies -- Imperial Tobacco, JTI-Macdonald and Rothmans, Benson and Hedges. It also names the tobacco manufacturers' council and nine foreign companies.
"We have understood from the tobacco industry themselves that the potential consequences of these type of lawsuits would put them out of business in Canada -- that it would bankrupt them,'' said Canadian Cancer Association spokeswoman Barbara Kaminsky. "I don't know if that's an exaggeration or whether it's the truth and I guess we'll just have to see what happens as the months and years go by.''
http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/news/story.html?id=06d20769-7afd-4e67-bf02-3850f46fb941
Our cartoon federal taxmen
Re "They just don't know how to quit," (Editorial, Sept. 20): You are so right when you wrote, "This is merely another attempted multi-billion-dollar cash grab by governments from the tobacco industry." Just what does the government do with the billions they already receive in taxes?
I was under the impression the ridiculous amount of tax on cigarettes was to: 1) discourage people from smoking, and; 2) help offset the cost of health care.
Guess I was wrong.
Another tax grab in the billions is the gas tax. Our highways are falling apart and something has to be done about it. Again, I was under the impression that the ridiculous amount of tax on gas, along with my yearly plate renewal, tire tax, etc., etc. was for the upkeep of our highways and roads. Guess I was wrong on this also. When it was said that $1 billion of the gas tax should be set aside for highway improvements, I heard politicians say a user fee should be implemented instead. All this makes me think back to watching cartoons where the tax man comes to the village demanding the people pay taxes to the king. When the people say they have no more to give, they are promptly held upside-down and shaken for any last coins they may have in their pockets.
Dave Podres
(Canadians have been held upside-down for a while)
http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/01/1243510.html
The way of government
Sue the tobacco companies for health costs with one hand, rake in taxes selling the product with the other. Hypocrisy, thy name is government.
Michael Knight Orillia
(They like to have it both ways)
http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/01/1243510.html
Shaky, two-faced fence
I couldn't agree more with your Sept. 30 editorial, Utterly hypocritical.
The governments are sitting on a shaky, two-faced fence. They need to finally make tobacco illegal and find new sources of revenue or just get into the business already. They're not fooling anyone -- except perhaps the Supreme Court -- with their hypocritical position. And, hey, imagine the fat surpluses we'd hear about if they cut out the middle man and became Big Tobacco.
Tom Buller Winnipeg
(Then they would have to sue themselves.)
http://www.winnipegsun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/01/1243574.html
A flawed ruling on tobacco
The Gazette Saturday, October 01, 2005
The peculiarity of the British Columbia law upheld this week by the Supreme Court of Canada is that it was designed to make it as easy as possible for the government to go after a single business, the tobacco industry. The Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act was passed in 2000 for the express purpose of recouping the hundreds of millions of dollars that B.C. spends every year to treat smoking-related illnesses.
The law, in other words, shamelessly stacks the deck in favour of the province. It allows the government to launch an "aggregate action," meaning it can attempt to bill 14 domestic and foreign tobacco companies for costs the health system had to absorb as a whole.
Under this legislation, the province has only to prove patients treated in B.C. suffered from smoking-related diseases. It does not have to present individual smokers' cases to try to prove its contention of fault. This is a huge advantage, to the government, over the usual course of civil lawsuits, where individual harm must be found to flow from individual fault before damages can be assessed.
The Supreme Court decided it was not a problem that B.C. would not have to abide by the customary rules of civil procedure and evidence, or that damages could be assessed retroactively.
Tobacco is, admittedly, a special case. Used as intended, it almost inevitably leads to illness and death. If it were to come on the market for the first time today, governments everywhere would not hesitate to ban it outright.
But, unfortunately for governments and the public purse, tobacco is beyond the point at which any society or nation can ban it. It has been a legal product for centuries. How could any government enforce a ban? What would happen to the millions of addicted smokers?
Still, that leaves us with a huge problem: Smoking-related illnesses take more than 47,000 lives and cost $4 billion a year in medical care in Canada. Cigarettes will end up killing one in every two smokers, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.
In Canada, governments until now have taken the route of levying high taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. This can be seen, in a certain light, to be a sensible compromise. High cost has been shown to keep cigarette consumption down among youngsters, who tend to be the most vulnerable to forming an addiction to cigarettes.
But the truth of the matter is also that governments have played a hypocritical role: Cigarette taxes have helped swell government coffers. Governments not only benefit from the sale of cigarettes, they have refused to do the right thing medically and socially and try to ban tobacco. This makes them complicit.
B.C. has decided to let the courts do its dirty work for it. And the Supreme Court has ruled accordingly, and the result might well be to help bring an end to the scourge of tobacco-related illness. But what will be next? Products laden with fat and sugar? They, too, are harmful to health.
The principle of proving harm flows from a specific product or act should not have been jettisoned, even in this case.
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=5d0c68e9-be18-4912-9df5-531b30c51f66
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2133
An unseemly money grab
Saturday, 1 October, 2005
Given broad public awareness of how deadly cigarette smoke is, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling giving British Columbia the go-ahead to sue tobacco companies may sit well with a majority of Canadians.
But that doesn't make it good public policy.
B.C. is suing a number of cigarette makers to recover smoking-related health-care costs going back to the 1950s. The province took the extraordinary step of passing a law that sets the ground rules for its court case. That is something like challenging someone to a duel and claiming the right to make the rules for the fight.
Neither Ontario nor any other province has said yet whether it will follow British Columbia's lead -- so far. But how likely is it that hard-pressed finance ministers will be able to resist such a tempting cash cow? They can look to the south for a precedent. Litigation in the United States led to a 1998 out-of-court settlement requiring tobacco companies to pay out $246 billion US over 25 years.
While mimicking the litigious fervour of the United States, B.C.'s attempt to extract money from tobacco reeks of hypocrisy. Dave Laundy of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council summed it up neatly five years ago:
"They (the government) decide it's legal, they set the rules and regulations under which the industry operates, and they collect their share of the revenues. And now they're suing us for doing what they give us a licence to do."
Indeed, governments' role in overseeing, and taxing, the sale of tobacco products makes them, in effect, willing accomplices in the distribution of a product known to be lethal.
As more than one editorialist has pointed out, British Columbia's next logical step should be to sue itself.
It must be acknowledged that government is in a bit of a no-win position with respect to the legality of cigarettes. The experience of Prohibition in the United States has shown that a ban on smokes would be unenforceable and would create a fertile ground for organized crime. To date, government has handled this conundrum by steering a middle course: regulating advertising, banning sports sponsorships, requiring manufacturers to print stark warnings on their packages, and collecting hefty taxes.
Together, taxes and public information have been doing their work. The rate of smoking in Canada stands at 20 per cent, down by about half from 1964, when a U.S. surgeon general's report definitively established tobacco smoke as a cause of death and disease, exploding the issue into the public spotlight.
The road ahead is unclear, as always, but the ruling was bad news for cigarette manufacturers, as well as for smokers concerned about the ever-rising cost of feeding their habit. There has been speculation that tobacco company losses could range into the hundreds of billions of dollars, possibly forcing makers into bankruptcy.
The essential point is that government should not conduct itself in such a two-faced manner.
"The government has made a lot of money through taxes and if they want more money through this product they can simply raises the taxes," Laundy said.
That would be a proper way of moderating corporate behaviour.
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Opinion/Editorials/2005/10/01/1243506.html
Accounting needed
I agree wholeheartedly with John Day's letter, Cancer funds all seem to go down pit (Sept. 24).
I, too, have always wondered where the money from the Terry Fox runs for more than 25 years have gone. It seems to me the Cancer Society and the researchers who receive these funds have no incentive to find a cure or improve the survival rate of victims.
This is big business and the more money that is raised the further away the cure is.
Helen Van Gassen, Delaware
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Opinion/Letters/
But could it break the bank at Big Tobacco?
SHARDA PRASHAD BUSINESS REPORTER Oct. 1, 2005. 10:27 AM
Tobacco manufacturers could be dealt a devastating blow by an onslaught of litigation after their setback at the Supreme Court of Canada this week.
The court's unanimous ruling paved the way for provincial governments to pursue billions of dollars in restitution for tobacco-related health-care costs.
Analysts believe tobacco companies will eventually settle out of court in Canada, and that settlements could be large. The companies, in turn, say they will defend themselves vigorously in court and that they have done nothing wrong.
In addition to Rothmans, Canadian manufacturers Imperial Tobacco Canada and JTI-MacDonald Corp. and other foreign manufacturers, including Philip Morris, were also named in the legal action.
Certainly the markets took a dim, although not devastating view, of the ruling, which allows British Columbia to sue tobacco manufacturers for related health-care costs dating back 50 years and for future related costs.
Shares of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc., the only manufacturer with stock trading on a Canadian exchange, sank yesterday and its credit rating was put under review.
Rothmans stocked dropped $1.38, a fall of 6.0 per cent, to close at $21.62.
Dominion Bond Rating Service, meanwhile, placed the company's commercial paper and senior unsecured debt "under review with negative implications."
The ratings service indicated in a statement that litigation represented a "material risk and concern to the company." The debt review should be completed within a month, said spokesman Paul Macciacchera.
Other observers sounded similar warnings. Blackmont Capital Inc. analyst David Hartley said in a research note that a large settlement could "create tremendous financial hardship for industry participants."
The stock price of U.S. tobacco companies have recovered because of a "more favourable litigious environment and other company-specific factors," Hartley said.
Dundee Securities analyst William Chisholm lowered his stock rating to "market underperform" from "market neutral" and cut the target price by $6.50 to $20.
Hartley expects the stock price to drop to below $20. He used the $246 billion (U.S.)1998 Master Settlement Agreement in the United States with 46 states and the U.S. tobacco industry and a 1999 trial which was overturned.
In those cases, stocks plunged by 40 per cent within six months after each outcome was known.
Estimates for the B.C. claims are $10 billion.
In his note, Hartley said observers have estimated the case could take at least five years to reach a conclusion and total national claims could reach $80 billion.
Analysts, including Hartley and Marc Marzotto of Merrill Lynch, expect an out-of-court settlement will eventually be reached.
Marzotto pointed to the Master Settlement Agreement, where "not a single trial reached a jury verdict." The massive settlement is being paid out over 25 years.
Rothmans spokesperson John McDonald stated emphatically that the company would not settle out of court. Christina Dona of Imperial Tobacco Canada agreed.
Both pointed to Health Canada studies that indicate British Columbia collects more in tobacco-related revenue than it spends on related health care.
"We know the facts are on our side," said McDonald, adding the ruling found no fault or liability with the manufacturers and that "we intend to vigorously defend ourselves and challenge these allegations."
When asked about the potential impact of any payout by Imperial, Dona said answering the question would be a "presumption of guilt" and the company had done nothing wrong.
But, she said, "we don't have a hidden vault of cash."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1
&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1128117013219
Province urged to go after tobacco money
By BILL LAYE, CALGARY SUN Sat, October 1, 2005
The husband of late anti-smoking crusader Barb Tarbox says Alberta should seek cash compensation from cigarette companies.
In a unanimous decision Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada said B.C.'s government is within its rights to sue cigarette makers to recoup the costs of treating diseases linked to smoking.
The verdict has opened the door for legal action by other jurisdictions and Alberta Health officials say they will be looking into the ruling's implications.
An while he approves of the court's decision, Pat Tarbox said his wife, the former model diagnosed with terminal cancer who spent the last months of her life convincing Alberta youth to butt out, never considered suing the tobacco firms herself.
"She was of a generation that knew it was bad for them, but there's generations before us that were told otherwise," Tarbox, himself a former smoker, said yesterday.
"But these lawsuits will straighten the companies out from all the lies they told for years ... anybody who blatantly lies to the public should be held accountable."
Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit seeking $17.8 billion in damages against Canada's three tobacco giants has been filed by a Quebec woman on behalf of nearly 1.8 million smokers in that province. It targets Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans Benson and Hedges and JTI MacDonald, and follows a February decision by a Quebec Superior Court judge that upheld Cecilia Letourneau's right to go ahead with her giant action.
The case is not related to Thursday's Supreme Court decision.
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2005/10/01/1243915-sun.html
More clouds gathering over tobacco firms -AB
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005
EDMONTON -- Other provinces are considering siccing their lawyers on tobacco companies, after the Supreme Court decided this week to allow British Columbia to sue the companies for smoking-related health care costs.
Alberta Health Minister Iris Evans said the Klein government will decide by Christmas whether it too will sue the tobacco industry.
Anti-smoking lobbyists in Saskatchewan are also urging their provincial government to introduce legislation that would also allow it to sue.
Evans said smoking is related to about $1.5 billion of the province's $9 billion in annual health costs.
Lawyers for Alberta Health have been asked to quickly review B.C.'s Supreme Court win. Manitoba is also looking at the court decision.
"I hope before Christmas that we'll have something in front of caucus to talk about whether or not the justice minister and the health minister should aggressively carry it one step further," Alberta's Evans said.
Evans said Alberta law lets the province try to recover costs from tobacco makers, but admitted it has never been applied to smoking-related illness.
"This (Supreme Court) decision is a first step and a major victory for the health-care system in terms of trying to recover some of the health costs associated with smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke and for those concerned about the health of Canadians," said Alex Taylor, president of the Canadian Health Care Association and head of the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO).
It would make sense and save the provinces a lot of money if they jointly sued the tobacco companies, he said.
Lawsuit smokescreen -- Government is senior partner in tobacco industry
October 3, 2005
Let's get something straight. The government does not want Canadians to stop smoking.
If they were serious, they could ban tobacco tomorrow, just as they ban dozens of other drugs, just as they banned alcohol during Prohibition.
Such a ban would be difficult to enforce, of course, as marijuana laws are, and as Prohibition was. But Canada's three cigarette companies would be shut down, and so would tobacco farmers, and cigarettes would be taken out of convenience stores across the country. Smuggled or home-grown cigarettes would still be available, but fewer people would smoke.
That's what the government would do if they really believed their own anti-smoking rhetoric. They don't believe it, because they are actually the senior partner in the tobacco industry.
Depending on the province, 60 to 75% of the retail price of a pack of cigarettes is tax. Tobacco farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers and convenience store retailers share about $3 from each pack, and the profit for "Big Tobacco" is about 50 cents a pack. Governments get about $7 a pack -- all profit for them, or 14 times as much as all three companies combined.
There is no industry in Canada more closely regulated than cigarette companies are. They are not allowed to advertise, or even sponsor public events; their product packaging has been expropriated by the government for shock-style messages; their product development and marketing decisions must be approved by government bureaucrats. The chief remaining function of the cigarette companies themselves is to be the party to shoulder the blame. Their job is to look evil and be called "Big Tobacco" while federal and provincial governments pocket 93% of the profits.
So what should we make of last week's Supreme Court decision to permit provinces to sue tobacco companies to recover health care costs? Not much.
It will pave the way for the actual money-grabbing suits to follow. Those suits will surely be successful, just as they were in the U.S. And, just like in the U.S., the cost of those lawsuits will be passed on to smokers through higher cigarette prices. The nine provinces that sued could avoid all the lawyers' bills and simply tack on another buck a pack in taxes. The coming lawsuits will simply continue the tradition of shifting the government's dirty work to the tobacco companies.
The model being followed here is the nearly $250-billion legal settlement 46 U.S. states came to with tobacco companies in 1998.
That sounds like a back-breaking sum, but it's spread out over 25 years, so it's just a small tax-hike. It allowed 46 preening attorneys-general to declare "victory" in the press against big, bad tobacco. But it actually was the consummation of the merger between Big Tobacco and Big Government. Those 46 U.S. states now depend on smokers to keep on smoking -- for at least 25 years -- or they won't get paid.
Two years ago, a $10-billion trial victory in Illinois by private citizens threatened to bankrupt Phillip Morris.
State attorneys-general from around the U.S. intervened in court -- on behalf of the cigarette company, desperately trying to stop Phillip Morris from going under. Didn't those private litigants understand the game? Take the golden eggs, but don't kill the goose!
Canada's governments have made the same calculation that every ruler has since King James wrote his puritanical Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, while filling his treasury with tobacco taxes: Tell people to stop smoking, but hope by God that they don't.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1495582/posts?page=2
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2133
RE "Smoking gun for suits," (Sept. 30): What in hell is going on? The federal government and the Supreme Court of Canada are going to allow lawsuits against tobacco companies because of health issues.
The Supreme Court hasn't got a clue or an ounce of intelligence to allow this kind of lawsuit unless they include the government of the day. Why? Because the government allows the sale of cigarettes to consumers and that brings in billions of dollars, and allows our citizens to suffer from diseases such as lung cancer. Until the Liberals ban the sale of products that cause this serious problem, this issue is utter stupidity.
So what else is new?
Nick Evanoff Kanata
(It's also utter hypocrisy)
http://ottsun.canoe.ca/Comment/Letters/2005/10/03/1245768.html
Cigarettes Worse
HAVE always thought it is interesting that the federal government can make marijuana illegal, and spend a lot of time and money fighting it with police raids and so on, but they won't do the same thing with cigarettes, which are totally worse for your health than marijuana. I don't smoke cigarettes or marijuana, but that doesn't mean that I don't see the hypocrisy of government.
Matthew Alexander
(See today's editorial.)
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/02/1245565.html
Teens not sold on butt law: Study -ON
By SHARON LEM, CP Mon, October 3, 2005
The laws dealing with selling cigarettes in Ontario to underaged teens aren't effective at preventing them from buying smokes, says a recent study.
Ontario minors are easily able to buy cigarettes by themselves or through a friend, a study of 737 occasional smoking teenagers and 2,050 regular smoking teens under the legal age of 19 indicates.
The study suggests a more comprehensive approach to restricting access may be required, including upping the price of cigarettes to discourage teen use, said Dr. Terry Sullivan, president and CEO of Cancer Care Ontario.
The study found the majority of occasional smokers (69%) and regular smokers (64%) say they were asked their age less than half of the time when trying to buy cigarettes.
The paper said occasional smokers usually buy their own cigarettes from a friend (60%) whereas the majority of regular smokers said they usually buy their own cigarettes (60%).
http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/Health/2005/10/03/1245868-sun.html
Point taken
So the thrust of your argument in your Sept. 30 editorial "They just don't know how to quit," is: If the government really cared about the effects of tobacco, then like marijuana, it would ban the sale of tobacco thus stopping its effects. Additionally, anyone seen smoking a tobacco product must be using an illegal substance. No government has the balls to do that! But your reasoning is valid.
Scott Ellison Bowmanville
(Let's not even get into which is more dangerous, pot or tobacco ...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's the next target?
As a non-smoker, I applaud the government for going after the legally operating entities of Big Tobacco through big lawsuits. How dare this legally produced, legally distributed, legally consumed and legally taxed product be so bad for us? What is the governments' timetable to go after Molson's, Seagram's, McDonald's, Pepsi and Frito-Lay? Will these industries be deemed illegal and shut down because they are all so bad for us? It's very clear that government is rapidly spinning out of control. How long before you or your business land in their sights?
G. Williams Toronto
(We predict the next step will be junk food taxes)
http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/03/1245763.html
Very dangerous precedent
Re: Utterly hypocritical (Sept. 30 editorial).
If the government is genuinely concerned about the ill-effects of smoking on the public's health -- taxes be damned -- they should just make tobacco use illegal. Period.
As your editorial points out, the ruling in B.C. sets a very dangerous precedent for other legitimate companies selling legal products, such as alcohol.
I made a personal choice to smoke and I am certainly not going to sue the tobacco company for a decision I made and I really don't see any reason why the government should do so -- I would think that the taxes I have spent (and continue to spend) on cigarettes would cover any health issues I may suffer in the future.
Mrs C. McLeod Winnipeg
And then some.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make smokers pay, too
I agree that the tobacco companies should be held financially responsible for health-care costs associated with smoking (first hand as well as second hand). But they should not be totally responsible financially. Why not charge the client (smoker) for part of the costs as well, as they are ultimately responsible for putting that cigarette in their mouth and inhaling and exhaling? If adults can say, "Oh, the tobacco company made me smoke so make them pay for my health care," then how are we to teach our children about being responsible for everything they do?
Stacey Derkson Winnipeg
Smokers are paying through their teeth.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/02/1245597.html
Big Tobacco doesn't owe a penny
National Post Monday, October 03, 2005
The Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in a major tobacco case, decided Thursday, is not so much a victory for governments, patients and anti-smoking crusaders as it is a vindication of the right of legislatures to make public policy.
The justices, who were unanimous, did not pass judgment on the merits of British Columbia's planned litigation against tobacco companies to recover the health care costs of smokers. They merely said that if the B.C. government wanted to pass a law giving itself the right to sue, it was within Victoria's constitutional power to do so. The court did not presume to prejudge what the outcome of such suits would be.
Now it will be up to the B.C. government -- which initiated this court case four years ago, and which has been trying for nine years to win the right to sue tobacco manufacturers -- to prove successfully to a court that cigarette companies deceived British Columbians into smoking and that, as a result, the province incurred at least $10-billion in additional health costs for duped smokers.
Proving that case will be no easy task. Unlike B.C.'s first tobacco lawsuit act, which was struck down nearly five years ago, the one upheld on Thursday does not stack the deck against the tobacco companies. Under the current law, the rules of evidence have not been changed -- as they had been in the first version -- to make it harder for cigarette makers to defend themselves. The most recent version does not attempt to extend the B.C. government's grasp beyond provincial boundaries, nor does it permit suits on behalf of people the government cannot demonstrate had been made ill by smoking or second-hand smoke, as its first law did.
Other provincial governments have rushed to line up behind B.C. with plans of their own to sue for billions, now that the Supreme Court has spoken. But like the B.C. government, they are being disingenuous.
In the United States, where tobacco taxes have traditionally been low, state governments may have been justified in seeking compensation from tobacco companies for past health costs -- as they did successfully in the 1990s. But in Canada, governments have always made more money from the sale of cigarettes than the tobacco manufacturers themselves -- many times more. Last year, for instance, Ottawa and the provinces took in more than $9-billion in taxes on smokes; the combined profits of Canada's cigarette companies were just over $1-billion. (Most years, the ratio is on the order of eight-to-one.)
In other words, Canadian governments are already the biggest beneficiaries of Canadian smokers' addiction. And if they directed their excise and sales taxes on tobacco to health care, instead of general revenues, they would already have recouped any additional costs to the health system imposed by smoking-related illnesses. The B.C. government claims it is out of pocket $10-billion in health costs over the past 50 years. But in the past 35, Canadian governments have collected more than $170-billion in tobacco taxes. B.C.'s share of that is more than $25-billion, far more than it claims it's owed. It is not the tobacco companies' fault that successive B.C. governments have spent that windfall on other programs.
The Supreme Court of Canada was correct to uphold the principle of legislative primacy in policy-making. It will now fall to B.C.'s judges to deal fairly with tobacco companies in the litigation now set to follow. As we see it, those companies don't owe Victoria, or anyone else, a penny.
Lawsuit smokescreen
Government is senior partner in tobacco industry
By Ezra Levant Mon, October 3, 2005
Let's get something straight. The government does not want Canadians to stop smoking.
If they were serious, they could ban tobacco tomorrow, just as they ban dozens of other drugs, just as they banned alcohol during Prohibition.
Such a ban would be difficult to enforce, of course, as marijuana laws are, and as Prohibition was. But Canada's three cigarette companies would be shut down, and so would tobacco farmers, and cigarettes would be taken out of convenience stores across the country. Smuggled or home-grown cigarettes would still be available, but fewer people would smoke.
That's what the government would do if they really believed their own anti-smoking rhetoric. They don't believe it, because they are actually the senior partner in the tobacco industry.
Depending on the province, 60 to 75% of the retail price of a pack of cigarettes is tax. Tobacco farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers and convenience store retailers share about $3 from each pack, and the profit for "Big Tobacco" is about 50 cents a pack. Governments get about $7 a pack -- all profit for them, or 14 times as much as all three companies combined.
There is no industry in Canada more closely regulated than cigarette companies are. They are not allowed to advertise, or even sponsor public events; their product packaging has been expropriated by the government for shock-style messages; their product development and marketing decisions must be approved by government bureaucrats. The chief remaining function of the cigarette companies themselves is to be the party to shoulder the blame. Their job is to look evil and be called "Big Tobacco" while federal and provincial governments pocket 93% of the profits.
So what should we make of last week's Supreme Court decision to permit provinces to sue tobacco companies to recover health care costs? Not much.
It will pave the way for the actual money-grabbing suits to follow. Those suits will surely be successful, just as they were in the U.S. And, just like in the U.S., the cost of those lawsuits will be passed on to smokers through higher cigarette prices. The nine provinces that sued could avoid all the lawyers' bills and simply tack on another buck a pack in taxes. The coming lawsuits will simply continue the tradition of shifting the government's dirty work to the tobacco companies.
The model being followed here is the nearly $250-billion legal settlement 46 U.S. states came to with tobacco companies in 1998.
That sounds like a back-breaking sum, but it's spread out over 25 years, so it's just a small tax-hike. It allowed 46 preening attorneys-general to declare "victory" in the press against big, bad tobacco. But it actually was the consummation of the merger between Big Tobacco and Big Government. Those 46 U.S. states now depend on smokers to keep on smoking -- for at least 25 years -- or they won't get paid.
Two years ago, a $10-billion trial victory in Illinois by private citizens threatened to bankrupt Phillip Morris.
State attorneys-general from around the U.S. intervened in court -- on behalf of the cigarette company, desperately trying to stop Phillip Morris from going under. Didn't those private litigants understand the game? Take the golden eggs, but don't kill the goose!
Canada's governments have made the same calculation that every ruler has since King James wrote his puritanical Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, while filling his treasury with tobacco taxes: Tell people to stop smoking, but hope by God that they don't.
Levant is Publisher of the Western Standard
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Levant_Ezra/2005/10/02/1245555.html
SP stance champions government intrusion -SK
Monday October 3, 2005
"A recent SP (StarPhoenix) editorial commenting on the Dakota Dunes casino agreement could not resist chastising the government for not taking the opportunity to bludgeon SIGA (Sask. Indian Gaming Authority) into abiding by the province's smoking ban.
The SP has shown itself to be an unrelenting apologist for the smoking ban and an unabashed cheerleader for government in its role as nanny. However, advocating government to take on the additional role of bully simply is wrong.
SIGA obviously has not been impressed by the exaggerated and largely unproven claims that secondhand smoke is a serious health concern and, judging by the success of its casinos, a large portion of the population remains similarly unimpressed.
The FSIN (Federation of Sask. Indian Nations) and SIGA have taken the position that most, if not all, bars and bingo halls would take, if only given the opportunity. In age-restricted venues, allow adults to make their own choices without intrusive government legislation.
The FSIN has made it quite clear that it has chosen to resist the wave of anti-smoking hysteria and will continue to do so.
Get over it!"
Your own choices
The Supreme Court of Canada has cleared the way for people to sue tobacco companies because of the damaging effects. What's next? Lawsuits against liquor companies because of the hangovers and missed work time? Or, lawsuits against potato chip companies because their products make people fat? Unbelievable. If you make the choice to consume products that are bad for you, you live with the consequences.
M. Berry
(Governments are addicted to tobacco money)
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Close the factories
My suggestion to the tobacco companies in Canada would be to simply stop the production and distribution of cigarettes. It can't possibly be a violation of the law to halt the sale of a legal product and it would be difficult to sue a company that has willfully withdrawn a substance that upsets so many people by its mere presence. The money saved by not having to pay the lawsuit(s) could be used in part to compensate employees until they find new jobs or subscribe to government assistance. As well, farmers have been exploring alternative crops for years so they shouldn't pose a problem. What could possibly go wrong?
Brian Marshall Pickering
(Why would they shut down when there's little chance of government suits succeeding?)
http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/03/1246946.html
McGuinty Government Helping Students Kick The Habit -ON
Leave The Pack Behind Program Builds On Proven Results
Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson today announced the McGuinty government is expanding the fight against smoking among post-secondary students by providing $600,000 to further support the Leave The Pack Behind program.
Thirteen per cent of smokers using the program have quit, -- twice the rate of five to seven per cent of smokers who quit unaided.
http://www.mhp.gov.on.ca/english/news100305.asp
If Government Cared
RE: "UTTER hypocrisy," editorial, Oct. 3. Well said. If governments truly cared about the health of the citizens they would have banned smoking years and years ago. What's next? The Big Liquor companies? When will governments take Big Liquor to court? After all, is it not the liquor industry's fault that there are drunk drivers?
D. McTavish
(Drunk drivers are to blame.)
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THE MOST recent study estimates the cost of treating smoking-related disease at $4 billion this year. This year the federal and provincial governments' combined take from tobacco taxes will be over $7.5 billion. So the myth of smokers being a huge drain on the heath-care budget can be replaced with the truth that smokers actually subsidize the system. The difference could pay for the patch or nicotine gum for every smoker in Canada with enough left over to fund increased educational programs.
Eric Harvey
(Coughing up cash.)
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/03/1246931.html
Smokers get prod from Capital Health -AB
Tue, October 4, 2005
Capital Health is taking a "gentle" approach to enforcing a sweeping smoking ban that went into effect at all its properties yesterday, a spokesman said.
"Any individuals who continue to smoke on Capital Health properties are encouraged to review the Capital Health policy," Mark Dixon said.
"We don't have the ability to assign special staff to police that. It's very much an honour type of process."
Staff and security who notice people smoking are asked to point out the new smoke-free rules.
At the Royal Alexandra Hospital, which in July was the first health centre to go smoke-free, patient Joshua Damstrom yesterday said he has no plans to butt out on hospital grounds.
"I won't. I will keep coming outside for cigarettes," he said.
The 22-year-old was attached to an IV and wasn't able to walk off hospital property.
Damstrom ventured outside a few times for cigarettes yesterday, but by late afternoon had not been asked by hospital staff to butt out.
Dixon said response to the new smoke-free rules has largely been positive.
The policy bans patients, visitors and staff from lighting up outside on the grounds and in the parkades in the Capital Health Region's 16 hospitals, 34 continuing-care facilities and 22 public and community health centres.
Smoking rooms used by palliative care and psychiatric patients in some facilities will be phased out by the spring.
Free nicotine gum, patches and other smoking cessation aids are on hand for patients. Help is also available for hospital workers who want to quit smoking.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2005/10/04/1247625-sun.html
Family defends tobacco crown -ON
Chris Thomas & Daniel Pearce - Times-Reformer Tuesday October 04, 2005
Rick and Nellie Verbruggen have the honour of being the Ontario Tobacco Champions in the 50th year of the competition.
The Verbruggens successfully defended the title they won last year during judging at the Norfolk County Fair. But it wasn’t easy.
The Tillsonburg area couple edged out former winners Brenda and Randy Godelie by a single point to retain their title.
“That was very close,” Nellie said. “My face is warm (from the tension).”
Although the competition was tougher, Rick said the result was even more satisfying. For their efforts, the Verbruggens won more than $1,500 in prize money.
Because the tobacco harvest is still going on, there were only seven entries.
But judge Mark DeVos of the Canadian Tobacco Research Foundation said the competition was close.
The Verbruggens grew a total of 93 acres, their largest crop ever. It was Nellie’s job to set aside promising looking tobacco during grading. Then it took Rick about 12 hours to pick out the samples for display.
“It was more difficult this year because we were so busy doing other things,” he said.
However, the Verbruggens said the competition is worthwhile.
“With the way things are going in our industry, this is the only place to show off something you enjoy doing,” Rick said.
A second-generation grower for the past 19 seasons, he acknowledged the uncertainty in tobacco growing. However, his sons want to follow in his footsteps.
“As long as there is a tobacco industry, I want to grow,” said the Verbruggens’ 19-year-old son Dennis.
The junior tobacco champion was Brad Deleye, RR 2 Delhi.
Tara Tanchak of Townsend Fruit Farm was named apple champion for the second year in a row.
The 30-year-old walked through her father’s 400-acre orchard northeast of Simcoe to select the best apples to put on display.
Growing a good crop wasn’t easy this year, Tanchak told the Reformer, because of the hot, dry weather and “a bit of hail” the farm received.
Fruit chairperson Lorraine Vogel said judges look for uniformity in size, shape, and colour. Apples, Vogel said, should also “be true to type” and without blemishes.
Entrants are also judged on the attractiveness of their display. Tanchak created a harvest scene using a human-sized doll she created and a bushel basket.
“It’s a lot of hours” to enter fruit in the fair, said Vogel, who has been a contestant in the past. “You have to keep disease and insects off the apples.”
Tanchak wins almost $900 for finishing first in all eight sections and second in two of those.
She was one of two adult competitors.
Winning in the junior categories were Brooke McKay, 12, of Waterford and Brad Vogel, 12 (Lorraine Vogel’s son).
http://www.simcoereformer.ca/story.php?id=188049
I'm ready to sue
I will watch with interest the outcome of the provincial claims against Big Tobacco. I sincerely hope they win huge amounts of cash through the courts by proving the "manufacturers and their lobby" deliberately and knowingly sold us on a product that was both harmful and addictive, so that I in turn can sue the provincial and federal goverments for a ton of money for keeping such a deadly product legally on sale -- even though, as per their own argument, this product was pushing the health care system to the brink of bankruptcy. As a non-smoker now, but one who was hooked on this dangerous product (kept legal by both governments) for over 30 years, I should be in for a bundle. Anyone care to join me?
Gerry Daniels Ajax
(Go for it)
http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/05/1248867.html
Depressing options
WHEN ALL the lawsuits go through and the people who freely damaged their health put the tobacco companies out of business with multibillion-dollar settlements, are the smokers who can't find any more cancer sticks going to sue the newly rich upper class of hacking ex-smokers for robbing them of their right to hurt themselves? Or will they just be mad because they didn't get sick soon enough to cash in?
C. Cary
(Depressing options.)
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/Letters/2005/10/05/1248845.html
Deaths from diabetes expected to soar 44%
By Melissa Leong Wednesday, October 5th, 2005
Of the 388 million who will die from chronic diseases over the next 10 years, about half will suffer needless deaths because they've smoked too much, exercised too little and ate unhealthily, according to a ground-breaking new report by the World Health Organization.
The analysis released today projects that in the next decade, deaths in Canada from chronic diseases will increase by 15 per cent to more than two million, and most strikingly, deaths from diabetes will soar by 44 per cent.
"The area that is changing the most and the most quickly is diabetes," said Dr. JoAnne Epping-Jordan, senior program adviser, chronic diseases and health promotion for the WHO.
"Diabetes is very closely related to (being) overweight and obesity and we are seeing in many countries including Canada, that despite the public health's successes, rates of overweight are continuing to rise."
The report entitled Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment featured nine countries, including high-income nations such as Canada and the United Kingdom, and low-income countries like Nigeria.
Its purpose, Epping-Jordan said, was to urge global action to prevent chronic disease which could save the lives of 36 million people who would otherwise be dead by 2015.
It showed how chronic disease hinders economic growth and reduces the development potential of countries.
"At the global level, we are undergoing a rapid transition," she said in an interview from Geneva.
"In many low- and middle-income countries, they are on the cusp of an explosion of chronic disease. We're seeing in the future, their health systems will be overwhelmed."
In China, for example, the country is projected to lose 80 million people to chronic diseases over the next decade and $558 billion in hindered economic growth from premature deaths due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
The report said Canada stands to lose $9 billion from premature deaths.
The WHO report acknowledged Canada has already made important gains in reducing chronic disease death rates. It estimates that from 1970 to 2000, more than a million cardiovascular disease deaths were averted in Canada.
"(Canada) is thought to be a sort of role model for many countries," Epping-Jordan said.
-- CanWest News Service
Chronic diseases around the world
Here are some facts about chronic diseases around the world.
Each year at least:
* 4.9 million people die from tobacco use.
* 2.6 million people die as a result of being overweight or obese.
* 4.4 million people die due to raised cholesterol levels.
* 7.1 million people die because of high blood pressure.
Both legal and lethal
SO FAR this year, Canadians have smoked almost 26 billion cigarettes. That’s what the running counter says on the Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada website. For tobacco companies, the smoke-o-meter is a testament to galloping sales figures. For governments already alarmed by galloping health-care costs, the counter doubles as a doomsday clock.
Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada gave the government of British Columbia – and by extension, other provinces – the constitutional clearance to try to recoup some of those costs from tobacco manufacturers. In a sweeping piece of legislation first drafted in 1998, B.C. declared open season on Big Tobacco, not only enabling a lawsuit but setting the ground rules for it. The companies appealed the legislation and now they have lost. This does not mean B.C. has won the fundamental argument; it has merely won the case that it has a case at all. So the real litigation is yet to begin in earnest.
The court decision has raised all kinds of questions of principle. Purists will argue governments are in no position to point the finger, since they, too, make a mint (in tax revenue) off smokers’ addictions. Besides, tobacco companies are selling a legal product and it’s not as if people haven’t had fair warning that cigarettes are bad for them. Banning the product, as opposed to bankrupting the suppliers, would seem to be the more principled stand.
Of course, we all know prohibition would be a bonanza for smugglers and no panacea at all for smokers. Keeping smoking legal – hypocritical as it may be – is by far the better course of action. The practical question is: How do we control the damage and the costs, and who should be responsible for them?
Arguably, smokers are already forking over a health premium of sorts by paying taxes through the nose every time they buy a pack. But that revenue comes nowhere near covering the cost of lung cancer and heart disease, just to name a couple of ailments linked to this bad habit. Hiking cigarette taxes is not an option. They are already as high as they can go without driving the lion’s share of the business into the arms of smugglers.
Governments – i.e. taxpayers, including the majority who don’t smoke – are paying through the nose, too. Between chronic care and critical care for smokers and former smokers, not to mention the lost productivity along the way, the bill is in the billions.
So is it fair that a third party – i.e. the manufacturer – should be held liable, as a matter of tort law, for some of the damage done by this product? Ultimately, that’s what this case is all about.
Naysayers like to draw comparisons between cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are legally sold, heavily taxed and the source of untold ravages in our society. Shall we sue breweries next for abetting alcoholism? What about the fast-food industry? Will governments go after it as well to recoup the enormous health costs incurred by obesity? Whatever happened to personal responsibility in all this?
These are all fair questions. Yet, in our view, cigarettes belong in a league of their own. They have no health benefits whatsoever, even consumed in moderation. There is no safe level of smoking. The same cannot be said of alcohol. As for food, it is a necessity – unlike booze or smokes – although it, too, should be consumed in moderation. User error, or excess, is what makes alcohol and food deadly.
But in and of itself, the cigarette is a lethal product. That’s the difference. You might still argue that people already know this when they first take up smoking. Nobody makes them smoke. This is true, and smokers will pay all their lives, if not with their lives, for this decision.
Yet if smokers know the dangers of smoking, does it not follow that tobacco firms also know the perils of selling? Nobody makes them sell cigarettes. Shouldn’t they, too, have to pay the consequences? Or at the very least, expect lawsuits as an occupational hazard?
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Editorial/457427.html
Let's sue everyone! -ON
Wed October 5, 2005
The decision by the Supreme Court to allow the B.C. government to sue tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health costs sets a precedent that could generate tidal waves for many industries.
How long will it take until some health ministry sues the fast food and snack food industries to recover the cost of treating obesity-related problems? Burger, fries, doughnut, sandwich, cola and candy providers, beware!
Car crashes kill hundreds and injure thousands, so the auto industry must be added. Beer, wine and whisky cause many medical conditions, so add the booze makers to the must-sue list. Why not go after the illegal drug trade while you're at it?
I do not dispute that tobacco products are a health hazard, but I think that the user (or abuser) of a product should bear some responsibility. The proof of tobacco's danger has been there for enough years that no one can say that they didn't know what they were doing.
He who diggeth his own grave should not feel that others are obligated to pull him out at no cost when he falleth in.
Robert Drummond Exeter
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Truth is pesticides hazardous to health
In response to the letter, Pesticide Untruths (Sept. 23), by Henry Valkenburg, president of Great Lakes Lawn Care, Inc:
The truth is the Ontario College of Family Physicians (not exactly a pressure group of malcontent activists) recently conducted a thorough review of more than 250 in-depth studies around the world on the effects of pesticides and concluded that pesticides are linked to prostate, brain and pancreatic cancer, leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and many other ailments.
The truth is pesticide use for cosmetic purposes has already been banned in more progressive municipalities.
The truth is children are most vulnerable to health problems caused by pesticides.
The truth is government regulatory agencies rely on studies provided by the pesticide industry.
The truth is it's only common sense that spraying and spreading tonnes of these poisons throughout our neighbourhoods year after year can't possibly benefit any life form, except maybe lawn care company presidents.
Vic Roschkov London
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Opinion/Letters/
No sympathy for tobacco companies
The Woodstock Sentinel-Review Brad Needham Tuesday October 04, 2005
Tobacco companies must be choking