Anti-tobacco efforts failed in Quebec

The Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control would like to see ‘governments’ follow Australia’s lead by introducing plain packaging for cigarettes, according to a blog posted by Richard Deschamps on the CJAD website.

The coalition’s Flory Doucas was quoted as saying that the brand name should be written on the bottom of the pack in a plain font with no colors; so that “it looks like the deadly product that it is”.

Doucas would like to see, too, bans on all new tobacco products, though it was not clear whether she meant new types of tobacco products, new versions of existing product categories or both.

The call for action follows the publication by Statistics Canada of data indicating that Quebec’s smoking prevalence has remained stable since 2005; the year before smoking was banned in the province’s bars and restaurants.

Quebec’s smoking prevalence stands at 23.8 per cent while the Canada-wide prevalence is 20 per cent.