Lost amid last month’s frenzied news regarding the latest COVID variant was a landmark announcement by the government of New Zealand of a bold new countermeasure aimed at the eventual eradication of an even greater killer: tobacco. In what is known as the “Smoke-Free Generation,” starting in 2027 the legal age for the purchase of cigarettes will increase by a year annually in that country, so that anyone under 18 will never be able to legally buy them, amounting to a lifetime

This coming week is National Non-Smoking Week. Unfortunately, one of the great silent ironies of (non-pandemic) life in Vancouver and other Canadian cities today is that many of us can usually get up, take smoke-free transit to our smoke-free workplaces, afterwards eat dinner in a smoke-free restaurant.

Raising the minimum legal age for sale of tobacco and vaping products to 21 is a smart and needed component of both reinvigorating our longstanding, but stalling, battle against smoking, as well as constructing a defense with any hope of countering the tsunami- like rise in youth vaping currently underway.

Cigarette butts are by far Canada's leading form of litter. Worldwide, trillions are littered annually. Beyond being unsightly, non-biodegradable and toxic to marine and terrestrial life, they are costly to clean up, and a leading cause of both structure and forest fires. Although increasingly getting the attention that they deserve as an environmental concern, little thought has been given to them in the context of Canada's recently-proposed single-use plastics ban.

2019 We got back last weekend from 11 days in Myanmar (country #95!), after a couple of wks in Malaysia, and are both still suffering from considerable jet lag. I didn't send out a trip email after our trip to Sardinia last fall as there was nothing very special to say (beautiful large Mediterranean island, excellent food..., our 2d in the world's oldest republic, tiny cliff-top, tri-towered San Marino, was more exotic), however the country formerly known as Burma is far too

That would be "What is Iceland?", Alex. Hi everyone, Imagine being able to drive from Niagara Falls to Yellowstone's Old Faithful geyser in 10 minutes. Now put both of them within a half hr of historic Jamestown, and only 90min from your nation's capital and largest city- without exaggeration, such is Iceland. We just finished a 2-wk, 2900km drive of Iceland's 1300km Ring Road with side trips to the West Fjords and Snaefellsnes peninsula. Iceland is impossibly beautiful, ev