Media Clipping – September 19, 2007, CBC News online

Smoking blamed for 1 in 5 deaths in Nova Scotia

The habit costs taxpayers $171.3M in direct health expenditures, says study

A new report applauds Nova Scotia's efforts to reduce smoking rates since 2000, but the study — commissioned by the Canadian Cancer Society — also says the province's anti-smoking campaign has stalled in the past three years.

Smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke is responsible for one in five deaths in the province, costing taxpayers $171.3 million in direct health expenditures, says the study, prepared by GPI Atlantic and released Wednesday.

The indirect costs to the economy were tallied at a further $526 million each year.

Report co-author Ronald Colman said the numbers were a significant improvement over those in GPI's initial study in 2000, when Nova Scotia's smoking rate was the worst in Canada, at 30 per cent.

The study says the proportion of Nova Scotians who smoked had fallen to 22 per cent in 2006, representing a 24 per cent decline.

"This is actually moving more and more in the direction of the news we want to hear," said Colman. "I won't yet call it good news, but this I would say is genuine progress."

Federal statistics released in 2006 showed most provinces within plus or minus five per cent of the national average at 19 per cent. The rates averaged from a low of 16 per cent in British Columbia to a high of 24 per cent in Saskatchewan.

Colman was quick to point out that the period in which Nova Scotia experienced its biggest decline, 2000 to 2003, coincided with implementation of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy.

"Actually, the whole decline happened in those years," said Colman, who noted that smoking rates have since edged up to 22 per cent from a low of 20 per cent in 2004.

"So we've stagnated. We haven't continued to make the progress we'd like to see."

Colman said that's why more needs to be done to reach British Columbia's current rate of 16 per cent or California's 14 per cent, thought to be the lowest on the continent.

"Maybe we need to look at further tobacco tax increases, further interventions and further effective funding," said Colman.

No smoking in public places

Maureen Summers, executive director of the Canadian Cancer Society's Nova Scotia chapter, said her organization was recommending a doubling of the budget for the province's tobacco control strategy to about $4.7 million, a $5-per-capita investment.

Steve Machat, manager of tobacco control for the province's Health Promotion Department, said the latest numbers were causing "immense concern within the department."

"It's leaving us with a lot of questions."

But he stressed that the study didn't reflect the province's latest round of initiatives, including changes to the Smoke Free Places Act and Tobacco Access Act.

Nova Scotia's anti-smoking laws ban smoking in all public places, including bars and pubs. And businesses are scrambling to comply with new rules that force them to keep cigarette products out of public view.

Health Promotion Minister Barry Barnet said the latest measures will eventually have an impact.

"It's going to take a long time before we see the economic value of this on the health-care system as well as a dramatic change in the number of people who die as a result of smoking and tobacco-related illnesses," said Barnet.

"What I'd be more interested in seeing is the actual smoking rates, because that will determine whether or not we've gone down the right path."

Barnet downplayed the call for more funding, saying the province was in the process of looking at what works and what doesn't when it comes to getting people to quit.

"It's not about how much money you spend, it's about the rules that you have in place and the plan that you have to deal with smoking," he said.

Using 2006 data, the study concluded that a further 36 per cent reduction in the smoking rate would save the province a total of $101.8 million a year.

© The Canadian Press, 2007