This past January, right around the time when Canada’s tobacco settlement was being finalized, our country held its sadly necessary 49th annual aspirationally-named National Non-Smoking Week. Back in 1964, when the US Surgeon General, Luther Terry, released his report making crystal-clear the immense dangers of smoking, his intent was that the findings would lead to the end of the tobacco industry.

whereby starting in 2027 the legal age for the purchase of cigarettes will increase by a year annually in that country, so that anyone born after Jan. 1, 2009 will never be able to legally purchase them, amounting to a lifetime ban.

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.