While the Alberta government is working towards implementing Bill 206, one of the toughest tobacco laws in the country – one teenager is working to make sure one type of tobacco product doesn’t slip through a loophole.
Bill 206, that prohibits the sale of flavoured tobacco, was passed in December – and is currently waiting for approval from cabinet, so it has not been implemented.
Meanwhile, Jianna Marin, 18, is hoping to ensure menthol cigarettes are also prohibited.
“We are concerned that if they exempt menthol from it, they are leaving behind 13,000 youth that do use this,” Marin said. “It’s going to cause future youth to start using cigarettes as well.”
Officials with the Campaign for a Smoke Free Alberta estimates 26,000 Alberta youth use flavoured tobacco products, and half of them choose menthol cigarettes.
“It’s more than a flavouring, it has a medicinal impact, it soothes the throat, it opens the airways, it increases nicotine absorption to the bloodstream, its part of the process of recruiting new smokers,” Les Hagen with Action on Smoking and Health said.
Hagen said the federal government has already tried to implement a similar law a few years ago, but it had little impact.
Health Minister Fred Horne said the provincial government is working out specific regulations in relation to Bill 206.
“You can imagine, first of all, all the products that are out there and of course all the places where they’re sold or where they’re consumed,” Horne said.
Horne said he hopes the legislation will be in effect by the fall.
“It’s actually quite complicated, the regulation will have an impact on the marketplace, so we have to make sure that we do it,” Horne said.
Over the next few weeks, Marin will take her message to Alberta high schools, in an effort to raise awareness.
With files from Veronica Jubinville
