Denormalization

MyChoice.ca believes smokers should have a place at the decision-making table when it comes to designing and implementing the laws, policies and taxes that are directed at them. We are alarmed at the precedents that have already been set – and continue to be set – by the treatment of smokers. This concern is shared by interested members who are either former smokers or who have never smoked.

Smokers and anyone else who is not deemed to be a member of the anti-smoking lobby have in recent years been banned from government conferences and advisory groups on tobacco issues. This created a uniquely one-sided legislative process through which one group was able to impose its views upon another law-abiding group without much fear of contradiction or restraint. So while governments maintain a legal industry whose customers are taxed more severely than any other consumers in order to generate huge revenues for their coffers, they have also punished those customers and denied them any real say in how they are treated as citizens.

The bias is such that an original goal in the 2001 Federal Tobacco Control Framework document - “harm reduction” for those who smoke and will continue to smoke - was replaced with “Denormalization” in subsequent annual progress reports. In the absence of any questioning voices at the decision-making tables, denormalization” has evolved from a tactic designed to attack the tobacco industry into a strategy that humiliates smokers through highly offensive claims and advertising and treats them as second-class citizens by removing their democratic voices and choices. This strategy has extended to allowing and even encouraging the mistreatment of smokers in the health care system, in their employment, and even in their retirement years in long term care facilities. The lead in this process was set and maintained by the federal government and its Tobacco Control Strategy, and was followed by most provinces.

MyChoice.ca is pursuing:

• A position for Canada’s almost five million smokers in the policy-making and decision-making process when it comes to taxes, and regulations aimed at them
• The elimination of the social "denormalization" strategy as discriminatory and an insult to the Canadian value system
• An independent public review of existing government tobacco control/anti-smoking policies and practices
• The development of mutual respect and accommodation that recognizes we all have rights and:
- Protects smokers from abuse by the health care system, employers and in their retirement years
- Provides for adult lifestyle social choices by permitting smokers their own venues, such as clubs and Designated Smoking Rooms, where they can engage in their legal adult lifestyle choice without bothering others

• Genuine government co-operation with smokers to address important and urgent issues, including underage smoking
• Improved cessation programmes, including government assistance with the cost of cessation products and independent assessments of the effectiveness of existing products and other assistance
• A clear accounting of how (public) tobacco strategy dollars are spent

Denormalization

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