Contraband Cigarettes Popular With Teens

A growing segment of Canadian teens purchase cigarettes from First Nations reservations.A report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal published earlier this week found that Canadian teen smoking-prevention strategies have taken a big hit from contraband cigarette sales, CBC News reports.
Contraband cigarette sales — those purchased from First Nations reservations — totaled 17 percent of all brands consumed by adolescents in Canada, and nearly 25 percent in Ontario and Quebec.
The study tracked more than 41,000 high school students from a 2006-2007 Youth Smoking Survey. Among high school students, 5.2 percent smoked daily, with 13.1 percent of those preferring brands from First Nation reservations. Those consuming contraband cigarettes were the heaviest smokers, consuming 16.8 cigarettes a day versus 11.9 for the remainder of the smoking pool.
"Although the use of illicit substances by adolescents is well known, the use of contraband cigarettes in this age group is striking," said Dr. Russell Callaghan from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, and one of the report's co-authors. "The widespread use of First Nations/native brand cigarettes, especially in Ontario and Quebec, presents a serious challenge to tobacco-control strategies, which attempt to use accessibility and price mechanisms to influence adolescents' smoking behavior."
Callaghan said that any revised smoking prevention strategies would need to recognize the rights of First Nations jurisdictions.
The Canadian Convenience Stores Association has conducted three research documents on youth access to contraband in high schools known as the BUTT study. "The results are concerning and we continue to ask governments to work with us to protect our youth," Dave Bryans, CCSA president, told NACS Daily.
In 2007, 24 percent of young people in Ontario and 30 percent in Quebec who were smoking on the edge of school property had access to contraband tobacco, and in 2008, the numbers jumped to 26 percent in Ontario and 34 percent in Quebec.
The most recent study shows that youth access to contraband tobacco is reaching epidemic levels, with some schools in Ontario reporting as high as 50 percent and some schools in Quebec showing almost 80 percent of young people having access.
"This is the first time in the history of Canada where the illegal tobacco market has surpassed the legal market in Ontario, leading us to an almost lawless society around contraband tobacco," said Bryans. "It should also be noted that this is one of the very few issues where the health movement in Canada and the c-store associations agree on the growing concerns with this problem and together are calling on governments to take action now," he said.