Health

Imagine if the strategies used to deal with the health problems associated with alcohol or diet only involved denormalizing those who drink or are overweight and telling them to quit their unhealthy habits or else. We may see that happen if the precedents being set with smokers are allowed to continue. It has now reached the stage where smokers are portrayed as less deserving of health care. We are seeing some doctors decide as a matter of personal principle not to treat patients who continue to smoke. We have seen public surveys designed to demonstrate public support for user fees for those who smoke.

Anti smoking groups have taken over some hospital and health boards and have decided to send a message by banning smoking anywhere on their premises, even in private vehicles on their grounds. As a result, those smokers who are patients are forced out on to city streets, often with IVs in tow. This strategy also makes hospitals unwelcoming places for smokers and may deter some from seeking treatment. It is also being applied to mental facilities, rehab centres and nursing and retirement homes. Meanwhile, private health and life insurance premiums are already automatically higher for smokers, regardless of how good their health might actually be. Now employers are being encouraged to take advantage of the denormalization of smokers to use health issues as an excuse to not hire smokers or, in some cases, to fire them.

What is being done to help smokers? The sole focus of government programs appears to be on prevention and cessation. These are legitimate primary goals. Indeed, a third of mychoice.ca members want to quit and see it as an important issue. How governments go about pursuing these goals is, however, a matter of concern. For example, they have so far refused to use any of the enormous revenues they receive from smokers in the form of tobacco taxes to help pay for cessation products, even though some governments have promised to do so. Whatsmore, only anti-smoking groups are invited to participate in the conferences and advisory groups that design cessation and prevention programs, and they are the only ones who receive government funding to implement these projects. Smokers are seen as only being good for paying taxes and subsidizing health care costs.

Little if any attention is given to those who continue to smoke. With any other legal product where health risks are involved, efforts are made to reduce the risks involved for those who use this product. This is not the case when it comes to Canada’s five million adult smokers. The original fourth pillar of tobacco control strategies – harm reduction – is no longer mentioned in the annual progress reports. Even though health experts privately admit there may be ways of lessening the risk of smoking, through diet and exercise for example, little if any effort is made to educate smokers about this and there is certainly no effort made by governments to look for products that may lessen health risks for those who continue to smoke. Tobacco companies have a responsibility too, but they are dismissed as having no credibility. Governments need to become involved.

Positions

• Keeping the pressure on governments to provide assistance with the cost of cessation products
• Demanding a voice for smokers in the setting of laws and health policies and challenging the existing bias in the system
• Pursuing fairness and the inclusion of all data in assessing the impact of smokers on the health care system, and seeking verification of claims that are cited as facts
• Opposing discrimination against smokers by the medical establishment
• Raising awareness of government failures to pursue a comprehensive health approach to smoking
• Seeking restoration of harm reduction as a goal of tobacco control strategies

Health

Positions

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