Province unveiling tobacco reduction strategy, Advocates hope plan focuses on curbing youth smoking by Clara Ho, November 19, 2012, Calgary Herald
He said it’s “appalling” how companies take something so deadly and addictive, make them fruit or mint flavoured, wrap them in “colourful little tubes like children’s markers and lip gloss” and sell them in singles to make them more affordable, to appeal to kids. … Angeline Webb, senior public policy adviser with the Canadian Cancer Society, said she hopes the province goes as far as to ban all flavoured tobacco products. … Separately, the province has launched a $10-billion lawsuit against the tobacco industry to recover smoking-related health costs.
[Refer also to: ‘More Facts, Less Friction’ and ‘Fact or fiction’ – what’s the fracking truth?
Ernst Letter to Alberta Premier Alison Redford, June 13, 2012: To Smoke or Not to Smoke and supporting documents
Premier Redford, has anyone in your government calculated what it will cost our healthcare system as masses of toxic chemicals – the same ones the tobacco companies use – endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, carcinogens, with the added bonus of radioactive materials – are unleashed, trucked, spilled, dumped, blown-out and injected, with your blessings and incentives, day after day into our communities and families? How many billion will it cost to clean up and fix the many “crimes against humanity” fracs into Alberta’s fresh ground water and make industry’s methane migration stop?
(The media reported EnCana Regulatory and Land Advisor Brenda Linster saying that “as a good neighbor, the company would return the water to its pre-drilling condition if need be.” My water obviously needs to be returned to its pre-drilling condition but instead of fixing it, EnCana continues to drill and frac and drill and frac near my well) I can’t remember the last time I saw a 4-year-old light up. These days society and health professionals frown on that and if parents allowed their toddlers to smoke, they probably wouldn’t be under their protection for long. Fortunately, it seems most parents take the responsibility and right to protect their children seriously.
Unfortunately, as your government bows down to frac’ing and an industry intent on profit and keeping their chemicals secret, you have stripped parents of their rights to protect their children and themselves. You are effectively depositing packs of cigarettes and worse into the mouths of every family and 4-year-old in this province daring to live. Will your government provide a hotline for toddlers that have had enough and are looking to quit? Will you visit the homes of sick kids and explain to them why it’s more important to protect a company’s toxic secrets, than to protect them? 10 Billion, that’s a big number for something we have a choice in. What do you suppose the number will be for something we don’t?
Alberta government claim alleges smoking industry conspiracy
Alberta to seek C$10 billion from tobacco industry
WARNING “Natural” gas may be harmful to your health
Big Tobacco Battles Advertising Restrictions
Fracking and the Natural Gas “Boom” — No National Standards, Secrecy, and Carcinogens ]