Features

B.C. to Ban Smoking in Indoor
Public Places

Public universities and colleges included in ban
‘Eric Szeto, CUP Western Bureau Chief

 

 

VANCOUVER (CUP) -- New anti-
smoking legislation being proposed by
the B.C. provincial government will be
leaving cigarette smokers in a plume of
smoke starting 2008.

Amendments to the Tobacco Sales
Act, which will emulate similar laws
in England and Ireland, include a
tobacco sales ban at public universities
and colleges, provincial buildings
and public athletic and recreational
facilities.

“It’s about protecting public health,
particularly young people and their
exposure to it,” said Sarah Plank, media
relations for the Ministry of Health.
Health Minister George Abbott made
the announcement March 6.

The ban on smoking on school
grounds will be in place by September,
while the other regulations are likely to
come into effect in January 2008.
McGill University, Dalhousie
University and the University of
Toronto are a few of the Canadian
schools to have already banned the sale
of tobacco on their campuses.

The legislation will also curtail large
tobacco advertisement displays called
“power walls,” and force retailers to
conceal tobacco products, including
lighters with tobacco brand displays,
under the counter. Smoking will also be
banned from doorways, windows and
air intakes.

Derrick Harding, president of the
Simon Fraser Student Society, which
represents 24,000 undergraduate
students, suspects that the new measures
will discourage people from seeking out
cigarettes.

But the smoking population of B.C.
at is already so low that the effects
would be “negligible”, he added.

National trends show that smoking
in Canada has steadily been decreasing
since 1999. According to the Tobacco
Control Programme Canadian Tobacco
Use Monitoring Survey, 21 per cent
of the population aged 15-24 were
smokers in 2006, compared to 26 per
cent in 1999. In B.C., about 15 per cent
of people between the ages of 15 and 24
smoke.

“Tt’ll make the smokers cranky,
without question,” Harder said. “I know
a couple of people up here and they are
already annoyed at the places they can’t
smoke on campus.”

The University of British Columbia
had already been heading in that
direction. Kent Ashby, UBC legal
counsel, said that UBC was already
busy preparing to implement many of

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the government’s recommendations
before the announcement.

“We didn’t know that the
government was going to come out with
an announcement,” he said.

Richard Pollay, a marketing
professor at UBC’s Sauder School
of Business, said that the gradual de-
marketing of cigarettes can only help
to achieve a societal goal of eradicating
smoking.

“When you’re de-marketing, and
that’s what the public is trying to do,
you put warnings on the package that
deglamourize the package, you tax
it to increase the prices, you control
distribution and the advertising
activity,” he said.

“Tt’s not rocket science, it’s
fewer sales than if you had a lot of
advertising,” he said. “But it takes time
for the market to shrink.”

Universities and colleges, he added,
have been sending students mixed
messages by having tobacco products
available to them on campus.

Reuben Lindenbaum, a first-year UBC
student, feels the new anti-smoking
laws violate his rights as a smoker.

“Tt doesn’t make me feel good,” he said.
“Not so much.”