if they are really that concerned ,
maybe they should start doing something about it
instead of their normal mode of just talking about it.

Tabacco reduction lead, how many more useless depts does northern health have that drain more on the tax payers? Everyone knows smoking is bad.. Close that dept.

I agree, smoking has at last become socially unacceptable and we no longer need to promote smoking cessation – there’s more than enough help and support for those who want to quit (and I can say that because I was one of them). What NH needs to do is to enforce the smoking bans, especially around the hospital – I was down there last week and a guy in a wheel chair, on oxygen, was smoking right outside the entrance doors, and he was there for at least an hour in a spot where people could NOT avoid him or his stink. We are short of nurses in UHNBC and could use the $100,000 it costs for a smoking cessation lead to hire at least one more.

Worried about e-cigarettes but not worried about nurses with HIV giving people injections? Really?

Cancer cures smoking.

I can never see cigarettes being banned…. government is making way too much money off of them in taxes.
They talk lots and no action.
I am wondering if it cost them less to treat cancer, and by how much. than they make with taxes?

why dosen’t Northern Health do something about the filt and lack sterlizating in the PG Hospital wonder how many out of the 10 thousnad contacted aids , hep c or hep B .Sure got kept under cover .

Tobacco is a legal product. If you do not like it fine, then don’t consume it or be around it.

I wish every one would quit being busy bodies and mind their own business.

If tobacco were such a horrible thing, it should be illegal, period.

Allow adults with the god given right of freedom of choice to exercise that right, including self harm.

This is no different than doing an extreme sport with approximately the same risk rate. Smoke and get lung disease or cancer, or go hill climbing in an avalanche area.

Wow, BCracer do you ever do any fact checking before you spread this false information.

Here are a couple of FACTS on smoking. In 2013/14 fiscal year the Province of BC brought in $724 Million in tobacco taxes.

Now when we go to the cost of healthcare in the Province of BC the cost was $18.4 Billion. Now the reports out there show that roughly 30% of BC citizens died from Cancer. If we assume that fighting Cancer only took up an equal amount of the healthcare spending that would be $5.52 Billion. Then if we further assumed that 1 out of 5 people that died of Cancer smoked (20%) then 20% of that $5.52 Billion is $1.1 Billion that it is costing the Provincial Government.

So in the end, I would say it is very unlikely that the government is making any money from people smoking. If anything it is only assisting to pay for the cost of healthcare. Which if people that smoke are putting a strain on the healthcare system, then it’s only fair that they pay into the system.

Please don’t ban E-CIGS, they are the second best way to identify idiots (the first being fedoras).

I like it, 15 inch – LMAO

mwk – Do you ever do any fact checking before you spread false information?

Less than 1 in 10 people that get cancer, have a cancer related to the respiratory system. And that does not necessarily mean they were smokers.

Not to say that you’re wrong about the government making less off tobacco….but if you’re going to correct someone, do your homework first.

-Get Over It

mwk, your absolutely right, but what about the money the government saves not having to pay out in pension.

If the government would ban tobacco the whole thing would go underground, just like it happened when the USA banned alcohol in the 1920s.

People would find a way to get tobacco illegally to feed their addiction. How much tax money would the government collect then? Zero? Add the new costs of tobacco crime fighting…

Let people make their own decisions whether to heed the warnings about damaging their health or not! Already some doctors do not accept tobacco smokers as patients. The writing has been on the wall for several generations. How does one motivate people into changing their habits? By education and information. Banning will accomplish nothing.

PrinceGeorge;

So what your saying is that it is a good thing that the government controls tobacco and related products. This alone cuts down on the underground illegal activities which saves tax payers money by not having to hire law enforces to control theses acts.

I guess it would make sense to legalize cannabis, the government could control and distribute this as well.

They should ban useless press releases.

“I guess it would make sense to legalize cannabis, the government could control and distribute this as well.”

Good guess! In fact that is probably what is going to happen in the long run, perhaps sooner than expected.

There are known health consequences with tobacco and with cannabis. Unclean air, water and food are bad too. Life is full of pitfalls. Some can be avoided, others not so much. Information and knowledge are they key.

Maybe our healthcare system could adopt similar practices from Europe where family doctors are compensated for patients they help to successfully quit smoking.

“There are known health consequences with tobacco and with cannabis. Unclean air, water and food are bad too. Life is full of pitfalls. Some can be avoided, others not so much. Information and knowledge are they key.”

I guess your right. With all the policies North America has implemented over the past 15 yrs. it is little wonder we can still enjoy a backyard campfire. I guess our implementations may lead to our demise..As the western winds blows who knows what toxins rain down upon us from countries afar (China) OOPS! did I say that.

mycatiscrazy

Maybe our healthcare system could adopt similar practices from Europe where family doctors are compensated for patients they help to successfully quit smoking.

Yeah I could see that working well..We have such an honest society

Getoverit:
You are absolutely correct but folks like letting a whole whack of sensationalism, misinformation, and paranoia get in the way of facts.
I trust the Doctor couple weeks ago that said getting Cancer is just
bad luck, and more to do with the accumulation of food additives that react in a negative physiologic way on certain human bodies.
When you think of all the people raised in houses years ago with second hand smoke and those people aren’t dead because of it, kinda puts the sillies to shame.

Sensationalism & Paranoia?
Here are some Facts:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women. (Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2014)
• Lung cancer is the most preventable form of cancer death in the world. (Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2014)
• Lung cancer estimates for 2014 (Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2014):
• New cases of lung cancer: 224,210
Males: 116,000
Females: 108,210
• Deaths from lung cancer: 159,260
Males: 86,930
Females: 72,330
Besides lung cancer, tobacco use also increases the risk for cancers of the mouth, lips, nose and sinuses, larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), esophagus (swallowing tube), stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, uterus, cervix, colon/rectum, ovary (mucinous), and acute myeloid leukemia. (Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2014)
• In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths; this equals about 480,000 early deaths each year. (Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2014; and US Surgeon General Report 2014)

I know these are from research in the US but I highly doubt a imaginary line between there and BC will make a difference.

Many more FACTS available at a touch of a button.

Risk Factors directly for the BC Cancer Agency:

The vast majority of lung cancers (85–90%) are associated with cigarette smoking. Preventing the onset of smoking and bringing about successful smoking cessation in current smokers will most effectively achieve primary prevention of lung cancer. Pooled evidence comparing non-smokers living with smokers indicates that second-hand smoke is associated with a 20–30% increased risk in lung cancer, after controlling for some potential biases and confounding factors.

Other risk factors for lung cancer, predominantly environmental and occupational, include exposure to radon indoors, air pollution, arsenic, asbestos, silica, chromates, chloromethyl ethers, nickel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and radon decay products. In addition, fumes from cooking stoves and biomass fires are associated with increased risk in some developing countries. Patients with head and neck cancer (excluding nasopharyngeal carcinoma) and patients with non-small cell lung cancer are at risk of developing second primary cancer in the lung because of field carcinogenesis.

A family history of lung cancer has been frequently found to be associated with lung cancer even after careful adjustment for smoking. Genome-wide association studies have identified inherited susceptibility variants for lung cancer on several chromosomal loci such as15q25 (nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit CHRNA5) and 6q23-25. Several additional factors have been associated with lung cancer, but the findings have not been consistent. For example, several studies have suggested that diets rich in fruits and vegetables are protective. In general, the associations between non-smoking factors and lung cancer are substantially smaller than the association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. However, it should be noted that even if all tobacco smoke induced lung cancers were eliminated, lung cancer would still be the 6th most common cause of cancer deaths.

Prevention
Cessation of cigarette smoking would clearly prevent the majority of lung cancer. Secondary prevention by pharmacological treatment to reverse a recognizable premalignant lesion is under investigation at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. A standard approach does not exist at this time.

Tobacco Control
Lung cancer is largely preventable as 85% of all cases are related to smoking. For children and adolescents, the focus should be on not starting smoking, whereas for adults, smoking cessation is an effective method of reducing lung cancer risk.

Over the past decade there has been an overall decline in the proportion of Canadians over age 12 who smokes (from 25% to 17%) with the lowest rate in British Columbia although rates for women have leveled off (stopped declining) since 2006. The Northern Health Region has consistently higher smoking rates than other health regions in BC and not surprising the poorest lung cancer outcome.

Vestedinterest – anyone weak minded enough to smoke is also weak minded enough to believe that cancer is just bad luck. Probably too dopey to follow your facts and figures too.
I say raise the taxes on smokes a little more and let em go.

And before the smokers get in an uproar, every smoker IS weak minded:
Too weak minded to withstand peer pressure
Too weak minded to cope with daily stress without a crutch
Too weak minded to quit
Every one of ’em fits in there somewhere

“Maybe our healthcare system could adopt similar practices from Europe where family doctors are compensated for patients they help to successfully quit smoking.” .. and what constitutes successfully quitting smoking? I have known people who have quit for 5 or more years and then started up again.

Having health “experts” tell smokers quitting cigarettes is as hard or harder than quitting heroin doesn’t help either. Quitting cigarettes doesn’t give you days and days of sickness and withdrawals, although the so called experts would like you to think that. The truth be told, the crave for nicotine lasts approx 30 seconds, if you don’t dwell on it and busy yourself for those 30 secs when it comes, it soon passes and you are good until the next craving. Nicotine is a drug that requires multiple fixes per day at short intervals, the actual physical craving for nicotine is gone from your system in less that 72 hours and all the rest is in your mind. The worse thing you can do is use crutches like Nicorette or the patch or anything that introduces nicotine into your system because it is essentially still keeping you craving nicotine, just in another form. Change your smoking habits and associations, such as, having a smoke after dinner, with your cup of coffee in the morning, etc. Do that for a couple of weeks or a month and then quitting cold will be a lot easier.

Obviously you have went through the motions of quitting smoking. That’s awesome information to share with others “Huh”. Makes it a little easier for some to recognize the triggers they maybe struggling with.

Quit 6 years ago and it was surprisingly easy once I understood the real issues with quitting, the physical withdrawal being the least of it really. And I can honestly say that in those 6 years, once the initial 2 or so days passed, I have never had a craving for a smoke. You just have to understand how nicotine acts and that cravings are here quick and gone just as quick. Get past that 30 second crave and forget about it till the next one, they get shorter and less frequent over the first day, and you have it made. The biggest mistake people make, who want o quit, is they have been told their whole smoking life how hard it is going to be before they even start, so they are already half beaten. The false notion of a craving following you for days has to be removed from the psyche, then it is easy.

Hey VestedInterest, didn’t you know that an ardent belief, no matter how ridiculous, trumps science? At least according to some.