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No cost is too high

Rising prices, education campaigns ... nothing seems to stop Northern kids from lighting up


Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 22/02) - Carrie Baird and Pam Kanatsiak are hanging outside the Side Door Youth Centre having a smoke.

Baird, 18, says she's cut down to one or two cigarettes a day since her doctor told her she should stop.

"The doctor told me to quit because I'm pregnant and it's bad for the baby," says Baird, who is three months pregnant. "Eventually I'm going to tone it down."

Baird has been smoking since she was nine years old. She started the habit, like a lot of young people in the North, while hanging out with older friends.

Although it's illegal to sell cigarettes to minors, they were easy enough to come by, she says. They would ask adults to purchase cigarettes for them. Sometimes they stole cigarettes if the opportunity presented itself.

"My mom doesn't really want me to smoke, but I'm trying to quit," says Kanatsiak, 15, a friend of Baird who started smoking at age 13.

Epidemic situation

Dr. Ken Seethram, president of the NWT Medical Association, says on a recent trip to the central Arctic to conduct ultrasound examinations on pregnant women, 75 out of 80 patients told him they still smoke.

"We have a huge epidemic," says Seethram."It's crazy."

A few weeks ago Health Canada issued a press release touting the decline of tobacco consumption rates across the country.

Smoking rates have dropped three per cent nationally, down from 25 per cent in 1999, according to Health Canada. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case for the Northwest Territories, says chief medical officer Dr. Andre Corriveau.

"A lot of the national surveys either exclude the NWT because our population is too small, and sometimes the methodology they use is not very suitable for our population because of language," says Corriveau.

"I don't think there's much evidence that our rates are lowering. What's happening is the gap between the rest of Canada and ours is increasing."

According to the GNWT Bureau of Statistics, more than 22,000 people in the Northwest Territories -- about 51 per cent -- smoke. Those aged 15 to 24 have the highest number smokers, about 64.3 per cent.

The statistics are also broken down between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. A hugely disproportionate 66.6 per cent of NWT smokers are aboriginal, compared to 32.1 per cent for non-aboriginal.

"I think there was some cultural elements that came into play," says Corriveau. "It's seems to have become a very normal activity, and so people don't even have a sense of how big a problem it is from a public health perspective. De-normalization for us is one of our key goals."

Kids influencing kids

Two weeks ago the Canadian Public Health Association held its annual meeting in Yellowknife. One of the conference's star speakers was Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a former vice-president of scientific research for U.S. tobacco giant Brown and Williamson.

Wigand blew the whistle on his former employer on CBS' 60 Minutes in 1995. He accused Brown and Williamson of lying to the public about the addictiveness of nicotine in cigarettes. His story was later re-told in the Hollywood feature film The Insider.

He spoke to both medical professionals and the public while in Yellowknife, but his favourite audience is children.

Wigand founded Smoke-Free Kids, an educational support group whose primary focus is to warn children of the dangers of smoking, two years ago and now visits students and classrooms across North America.

While in Yellowknife he had lunch at the Abe Miller Centre with a group of young people. Wigand believes children hold greater sway over their peers than others.

"When kids go out and teach other kids they can actually change the dynamics of what they're doing," Wigand tells the students.

Ironies abound in the Northwest Territories, he says. At $10 a pack why are so many people smoking here? Why is there a continuous supply of willing newcomers ready to take up the habit, Wigand asks the students.

Morgan Moffitt, who will be going into Grade 9 at Sir John Franklin high school this fall, puts it to him bluntly.

"It's peer pressure," says Moffitt. "Everyone around you smokes."

Wigand says the industry has always marketed their products with youth in mind.

"Early on, the tobacco industry and the candy industry tried to join up," says Wigand.

Little has changed today, he says. Food items normally associated with children, such as Oscar Meyer wieners and Kraft peanut butter are owned by Phillip Morris, the largest tobacco producer in the United States.

Last April, Phillip Morris' board of directors voted to change the name of their company to Altria Group, Inc. Some consumer advocates say the name change is a cynical move on their part to distance themselves from the cigarettes they sell.

Safer cigarettes?

Of course, the question on every kid's mind while talking to Wigand is why would he work for a company like Brown and Williamson in the first place?

He insists that his original intention was to make safer cigarettes, and at $500,000 a year, it was too great an opportunity to turn down.

However, it quickly became clear to him that his employers really had no interest in making cigarettes "safer." That the bottom line with big tobacco is to make money.

He was eventually fired from Brown and Williamson for arguing with company officials about a carcinogen (a cancer-causing substance) they refused to remove from cigarettes.

Although he never worked for Phillip Morris, he decided to go public after hearing the company refused to market a cigarette that would not burn if left unattended. The innovation could have saved hundreds who killed in house fires as a result.

Shortly after Wigand agreed to do the CBS interview he received death threats.

"I personally started carrying a hand gun because if anyone hurt my girls I would kill them," says Wigand.

Still lighting up

Back at the Side Door, News/North asks Baird and Kanatsiak if they believe tobacco companies are evil.

"Yeah, sort of," says Kanatsiak. "Because of all the chemicals in the filter and the paper. Once you start it's really hard to quit."

Baird says she believes tobacco companies are just good entrepreneurs. Advertising, different brands -- it's all part of doing business.

"It's their job to put out the best advertising and the best taste," says Baird.

Kevin Laframboise, the Side Door's director, says he encourages the kids to stop smoking, but ultimately the decision is up to them.

He says the majority of the kids smoke who use the facility.

"I encourage them to stop," says Laframboise.

"I challenge them to consider why they smoke. As far as I remember, there's all this information out there to tell them how bad tobacco is but they still smoke."