Pubdate: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 Source: Orangeville Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2006 Orangeville Citizen Contact: http://www.citizen.on.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2529 Author: Lavinia Kerr HOW ABOUT AN 'APCBO'? The death this week of Dana Reeve, the actor, singer and inspiring wife of Christopher Reeve, from lung cancer must have been profoundly disturbing to many of us, including the medical community. One thing we learned was that she, a nonsmoker, was not alone in succumbing to a disease most of us thought was caused by smoking. Apparently, about 15 per cent of the women who die of lung cancer in the United States had either never smoked or had long since given up the habit. We'll likely never know what caused the tumors in Mrs. Reeve's lungs, but her career could have been a factor, since she likely encountered a lot of "second-hand smoke" while singing in nightclubs. We suppose that what needs to be stressed is that most of the lung cancer in both men and women can be traced to the "cancer stick," as evidenced by the deaths of such prominent men as Humphrey Bogart, Edward R. Murrow and, more recently, Peter Jennings. On a more personal level, it was interesting to learn, upon discovering in 1999 that I, like my father and a great uncle, had developed bladder cancer, that this form of the disease is also usually associated with smoking. In fact, the first question put to me by the specialist was: "Are you a smoker?" "Not since I was 14," was my reply. And as I thought about it, I recalled that Dad had stopped smoking many years before that awful day when he first found blood in his urine. In our case, one thing Dad, Uncle Bert and I shared was exposure to a lot of potential carcinogens found in print shops of the day. And although I clearly had not been exposed to them for several decades, one doctor said it was entirely possible that the disease had been developing that long! Whatever the case, the point to be made is that smoking clearly isn't a healthy habit, and we as a society should be doing everything possible to dissuade teenagers from getting hooked on nicotine. Having already banned cigarette advertising in newspapers and on television and billboards, governments are now moving to ban the huge displays found at the main counters in our convenience stores. In less than two years, those displays are to disappear, with the products all being placed beyond the eyes of all customers, under counters. It will be interesting, indeed, to see what effect, if any, this latest move will have on cigarette sales, and particularly on the number of new teenaged smokers. In one convenience store the other day, the clerk expressed her clear annoyance with the approaching ban on the displays. "Why don't they just ban cigarettes?" she asked, no doubt rhetorically. "They still need the taxes," I suggested. The brief encounter got me to thinking about how we currently and historically dealt with our Big Three of potentially addictive commodities - tobacco, drugs and alcohol. Historically, tobacco products were to be found, and could be consumed, just about everywhere, and the smoke they produced was seen by most of us as nothing more than a nuisance. Fifty years ago, the newsrooms of the nation, along with restaurants, theatres, intercity buses and virtually every workplace had few, if any, rules against smoking. Ashtrays were everywhere, and you'd even encounter people smoking in elevators. Back then, alcohol was something found only in places like Loretto and Hepworth that for some reason had never gone for "Local Option," Ontario's compromise in the wake of the Prohibition movement that swept North America in the early 20th Century. It was only in the 1950s that towns like Orangeville and Shelburne began holding plebiscites that initially approved Liquor Control Board of Ontario outlets and later permitted the licensing of bars and restaurants. Today, alcohol is nearly as freely available and openly consumed as tobacco products once were. As for drugs, those deemed addictive are generally either banned outright or available only on prescription. Marijuana stands out as the great exception, the law treating it in much the same way as it once did alcohol despite claims that it, like red wine, it isn't very addictive and may actually have some health benefits. As was the case during Prohibition in the U.S., Canadians are generally less concerned about marijuana than our friends south of the border, and our courts are far less inclined to mete out heavy sentences to those found in possession of small amounts. Even major traffickers tend to get relatively short penitentiary sentences in an era when life sentences are routinely handed down by U.S. courts. It remains to be seen whether the new Conservative government at Ottawa will do anything similar to the moves contemplated by its Liberal predecessors, which would have made possession of small amounts of the weed a misdemeanour that did not give offenders a criminal record. However, my suspicion is that before too long a need to fund medicare will drive Ottawa to decriminalize marijuana, a move that will mean enormous new tax revenue, both from the commercial sale of the product and from the ability to tax the income of those who grow the plants and manufacture the final product. When that day finally arrives, it will likely be up to the provinces to decide what rules will be followed in controlling the sale (and advertising?) of marijuana products. Perhaps in Ontario we shall one day see our familiar LCBO stores converted into new retail outlets for the controlled disposition of a whole variety of addictive products. Instead of just beer, wine and liquor they could dispense tobacco products, marijuana and some other mildly addictive drugs, thereby raising huge revenue for the provincial treasury. The stores would be owned and operated by the new Addictive Products Control Board of Ontario, the APCBO. - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPF Florida)