Michelle DaCruz
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 05/02) - The territorial government picked an appropriate date to launch its plan to prevent people from lighting up.

NWT chief medical officer Andre Corriveau announced May 31 -- World No Tobacco Day -- that the GNWT's Action on Tobacco strategy is to lower smoking rates over the next three years.

People in the NWT are almost twice as likely to smoke than the rest of Canada, according to a 1999 NWT Labour Force Survey.

In the NWT, 42 per cent of the population smokes compared to 25 per cent across Canada.

"To have a significant impact on people all levels of government, and all groups, youth to aboriginal people must be involved," said Corriveau.

The first initiative of the working group, established in 1999 and currently comprised of GNWT staff only, will be to broaden its representation to include both youth and aboriginal members by fall.

"We need to get ex-smokers on board to emphasize cessation. Youth will listen to an ex-smoker versus someone like me who has never smoked," Corriveau said.

The GNWT is concentrating its efforts on prevention, stopping children from smoking before they start, and educating them as early as Grade 6.

The working group will encourage communities to pass bylaws restricting smoking in public places, and encourage the Workers' Compensation Board to declare second-hand smoke a hazard in the workplace.

"Leaving a cigarette burning in the ashtray is more dangerous than smoking it because high heat destroys many contaminants," said Corriveau.

Anti-smoking training will be incorporated into the Northern Nursing program by 2004.

The territorial government will also make counselling available at the community level, and work to have nicotine replacement therapy aid covered under its extended benefit program -- available to NWT residents -- by April 2004.

By 2003, the GNWT hopes to modify death certificates to identify tobacco use as a contributing factor to mortality.

"When someone dies of lung cancer it is easy to identify smoking as a factor. But when it is heart disease for instance, it might not be as easy to determine the cause," said Corriveau.

The GNWT will devote $200,000 of its budget to the strategy, and fund community initiatives with $160,000 from its health promotion fund.