Pro-smokers' group just a smokescreen

The Review (Niagara Falls)
Tue 09 Nov 2004

THE REVIEW'S COVERAGE of the tobacco industry's latest front group ('Fighting for smokers' rights', Nov. 4) leaves out a number of important points about this initiative:

The group, mychoice.ca, is 100 per cent conceived and backed by the tobacco industry and was not created in response to any proactive demand from anyone who smokes, or any group of people who smoke anywhere in Canada. While a large majority of people who smoke - at least seven in 10 - want to quit, there will always be a small minority who object to efforts to control the number one cause of preventable death in this country.

The industry can count on at least some of these people joining a front group of this type.

I have been working with municipalities and health agencies across the province for many years on smoke-free bylaws, and have never seen anyone who smokes, or any business that caters to people who smoke, hesitate to express their views to municipal councils or the media. Nor has any council or media outlet avoided listening to their positions or covering their views.

To suggest the tobacco industry should provide a "voice" to smokers is hypocritical at best, since the industry is the organization that addicted them to a lethal product, which will kill up to half of its long-term users, in the first place. But it's also a clever move on the industry's part.

Tobacco company spokespeople have no credibility when they attack tobacco control measures. To hire a spokesperson to "represent" a relatively small number of the total number of smokers distances the industry - and its history of lying and deception - from current tobacco control policy debates, and over time creates an impression of independence from the industry.

Mychoice.ca's claims it "does not promote smoking" is laughable.

We've been tracking the group's statements. To date, they've attacked higher taxes, smoke-free spaces and every other tobacco control measure they've come across.

In our experience, the large majority of people who smoke have no wish to harm others through the secondary effects of their addiction, and certainly don't want the tobacco industry speaking for them. Mychoice.ca is nothing more than a cynical attempt to provide the tobacco industry cover as it tries to manipulate the small minority of smokers who resent efforts to control tobacco use.

Michael Perley
Director
Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco