Should provinces pay for smoking aids?

[Topaz]

Quebec is the only province to pay for smoking aids partly because Quebecers smoke more any other province. Health experts are saying if the provinces and territories paid for people over 65 and on government assistance, health care cost would go down. Frankly, I think anyone who WANTS to quit, and can't afford the aids should be helped, the more that can quit the more diseases cause by smoking and the healthcare for them would go down. Of course, there's people who will say no, I don't want my healthcare money going there. Thoughts. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100830/health/health_smoking_cessation

[Wooster]

Being from New-Brunswick, a province where we don't have a lot of money to throw around, I do believe that helping smokers quit is a good initiative.

If there could be a method of tracking their actual commitment and success- Let's say, we reimburse the cost of smoking aids to those who have gone a full year without smoking- I would be more lenient towards giving out the money.

I've seen A LOT of smokers quit and then pick it up again after a couple of months.

I , myself, have quit after 10 years, and although I do think it is more an issue of personnal commitment and wanting to quit, I guess anti-smoking products can be beneficial to those lacking the willpower.

And so to those who lack both the willpower and the cash- I say, go ahead help 'em out, but they have to show results in return

[capricorn]

If there could be a method of tracking their actual commitment and success- Let's say, we reimburse the cost of smoking aids to those who have gone a full year without smoking- I would be more lenient towards giving out the money.

It's a good idea on the surface. But what about those who can't pay for it up front? From what I've read, the highest concentration of smokers is in the lowest income group.

What I would like is a reduction of the taxes levied on cigarettes in order to counter the sale of contraband cigarettes. As a result, legal tobacco sales would increase government revenue. That revenue could be applied to pay for the quit smoking aids for everyone who wants to quit and public education.

[William Ashley]

Quebec is the only province to pay for smoking aids partly because Quebecers smoke more any other province. Health experts are saying if the provinces and territories paid for people over 65 and on government assistance, health care cost would go down. Frankly, I think anyone who WANTS to quit, and can't afford the aids should be helped, the more that can quit the more diseases cause by smoking and the healthcare for them would go down. Of course, there's people who will say no, I don't want my healthcare money going there. Thoughts. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100830/health/health_smoking_cessation

If they want to. Personally I don't like controls on personal choices regarding the self- there is nothing to stop the government from providing to the people things they would like though - as long as it isn't forced on them,such as in the mental health stream.

Eg. what happens to people held in public facilities - already most public facilities disallow smoking forcing quiting by cold turkey.

The further extension of things like burka bans ect.. are just further infringements on personal life style choices. In atleast offering the alternative for free they are potentially reducing the harm they are causing - this still doesn't remove religious and cultural infringements though.

Edited August 31, 2010 by William Ashley

[marvc]

Although smoking is an addiction, it is also a smokers conscious decision to do so. If someone can afford to buy cigarettes, they should also be able to afford to quit without wasting the governments money!

[DrGreenthumb]

It's a good idea on the surface. But what about those who can't pay for it up front? From what I've read, the highest concentration of smokers is in the lowest income group.

What I would like is a reduction of the taxes levied on cigarettes in order to counter the sale of contraband cigarettes. As a result, legal tobacco sales would increase government revenue. That revenue could be applied to pay for the quit smoking aids for everyone who wants to quit and public education.

I like this idea. We should also end prohibition, and use the money saved on law enforcement, and taken in in taxes to pay for addiction treatment centres.

[Topaz]

Although smoking is an addiction, it is also a smokers conscious decision to do so. If someone can afford to buy cigarettes, they should also be able to afford to quit without wasting the governments money!

Wait a minute. First of all, most smokers start as young teens. They don't know how addictive it is until its too late and you are hooked. Very few people can just quit and others need a good scare like lung cancer before they quit. I've seen cancer patiens hooked up to an IV outside the cancer hospital SMOKING!! These people just can't do it and they go back and forth to treatments until the treatment doesn't work anymore and then they die a horrible death. Why doesn't the Feds ban smoking? Because they need the 9 Billion smoking brings in and they really don't care about people and their addiction to this.

[Bonam]

Wait a minute. First of all, most smokers start as young teens. They don't know how addictive it is until its too late and you are hooked.

Anyone who starts smoking and "doesn't know" about how addictive and harmful it is is an absolute idiot, whether they are a teen or not. I knew exactly what effect cigarretes would have and why I shouldn't smoke when I was 12, or when I was 8 for that matter, and so did most of my peers. Not to mention, every single god damn box of cigarettes has disgusting pictures and warnings of what will (maybe) happen to you if you smoke it.

Why doesn't the Feds ban smoking? Because they need the 9 Billion smoking brings in and they really don't care about people and their addiction to this.

They don't ban smoking because 1) it would be political suicide, 2) it would be impossible to enforce (heck, much of the police force would be against enforcing it), and 3) it would end up the same way as prohibition of alcohol did. The 9 billion revenue is pocket change compared to the health care costs of smoking and the government knows that so that's not the reason.

The current strategy against smoking, of increasingly stigmatizing it from every publicity angle possible, is working well. The popularity of smoking is diminishing. Almost everyone my age that I know thinks smoking is disgusting and can't stand being around smokers. Keep up the media assault on smoking and it will be a non-issue in another generation or two.

Now, as for provinces helping to pay for aids to quit smoking, from a pragmatic point of view, it should be an obvious yes. Provided that the program is conducted with only the level of waste and incompetence that is typical of the government, it would still reduce health care costs greatly, far outweighing its own costs. You need but compare the cost to treat and care for someone with lung cancer to the cost to give someone some nicotine patches.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Bonam

[William Ashley]

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Although smoking is an addiction, it is also a smokers conscious decision to do so. If someone can afford to buy cigarettes, they should also be able to afford to quit without wasting the governments money!

You know coffee, alcohol and sugar are drugs to.

Coffee and alcohol are known to be addictive....

So does this mean that alcoholics should force themselves to quit, or coffee drinkers should pay for their own decaffeination program. Why is it that smoking tobacco is the one the government needs to force you to stop on - well because it is a second hand drug also - and that is the bottom line. The fact is legal and illegal drug use is rampant in western society. People do all kinds of things that are unhealthy like eat fatty foods, sit on their buts and watch TV or work in a sedentary work environment. It isn't the governments responsibility to treat people for their problems - but it may lower government funded health costs. This is why insurance providers have sliding scales based on lifestyle. I purport a more self regulated and funded health system (with removal of tax dollars distributed to health funding) and letting people opt between government health insurance or private health insurance or both, with potential subsidies for the underprivileged. People use drugs, its a fact. Its time to decriminalize and to protect society by adequate monitoring and maintaining a social awareness of responsible drug use, and liabilities for dealers if they deal more than what is legally safe, much like smart serve, but for drugs. Training on drug dispensing including sugar should occur - there is too little awareness on the seriousness of drug dispensation for diabetics and beyond. People just aren't trained to be doctors but still programs can exist for harm reduction. We ought to concentrate on the real crimes. The whole non awareness choice is there but we must prevent drug abuse, some drugs aren't' safe but the shear amount of drug use to overdose when limits are set is different. Mexico has recently partially taken this approach with heroine, cocaine and marijuana.

But how does this apply when people can smoke in there homes and vehicles - private space - how is that different from a beer scotch or double double?

http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/caffeine_effects.php

This is in part why I think drug legislation should be scrapped and replaced with public safety codes that regulate production and exposure to drugs. Rather than possession or use. Production is either an agricultural or industrial process and safeguards for both of these should exist regardless of drugs. Some of this stuff is screwed up but people ought to be able to live their own life - it is only people who can't act responsibly, but monitoring drug distribution and use allows for public safety monitoring. It won't happen but it is the right choice. The shear amount of coffee consumed pollutes the environment. It can actually be measured. IN Spain and Italy tremendous amounts of cocaine can be tested for in the water supply. Consumption rates are tremendous.

You can see this with things like Fords rating surging when his DUI and marijuana arrests became public knowledge. Canada has two distinct groups of people when it comes to drug use (including tobacco use) those who use them, and those who don't. It is those who don't who are trying to prevent those who do from. Isn't this odd... that is like saying pedestrians should make driving laws, and drivers should make pedestrian laws.

Overall though this is about a treatment program. Should treatment programs exist - IT SHOULD BE COVERED BY HEALTH INSURANCE --- and the government needs to reform health insurance -that is the bottom line. The programs should exist but people who use them should pay for them, not people who don't. That doesn't mean the poor should have no choice though - programs can cost more than the price of smoking. Seeing a psychologist alone can cost 500$ or more for a hour or two. Those costs aren't now covered by programs like OHIP. Yet seeing a doctor who may prescribe drugs - people may not be able to afford can - perhaps with counselling they would be able to quit? Who knows.

I quit smoking cold Turkey although I bought a pack a couple times after when I had to think. Some people clearly have more addictive personalities than myself, I didn't find it difficult to quit after the first bit, and I was never a heavy smoker. Clearly there may be those who were or are. I took a recent train trip and as soon as I got on someone wanted off to have a cigarette - stated that not being able to smoke was a human rights abuse. To him clearly he really really wanted a smoke. I can see in another instance someone not being able to smoke had them want to go home promptly rather than stick around somewhere with their friends.

The thing is though - it is sad when people aren't entitled to their personalities - there are people who are antisocial or jerks without the need of chemical drugs. People are drugged for both ill and stated good within the mental health stream, people are treated for physical health conditions with side effects including drowsiness and distemper. The fact is drugs are part of society. People have been using these drugs for a LONG time - its not about the drugs its about their safe use.

Personally I'm not a consumer of drugs - I rarely drink caffeine, I rarely drink, I don't smoke.

I wouldn't deny those things to someone else though. But I wouldn't be against having a means for them to alter their lifestyle habits, especially if it saves me 10$ down the road. Its a lifestyle choice. --- We need better health insurance. Health increase indicators in the private system play into that - why not the public system? Legalize drugs - and regulate the system more. Awareness is a first step. If they can't pay have them earn social credit. Maybe doing some community service will keep their mind off their coke habit - but no need to involve the courts for a personal lifestyle choice and no harm done.

People die all the time, why is it such a taboo to not let people die? Perhaps this is just an indicator of a world of faithless heathens. Drug control actually comes from the opposite, an attempt to implement religious fundamentalism that bars certain types of drug use. Drugs were pervasive as a commodity until just the last century. Drug use is ingrained in society whether alcohol. Where are the indicators or rationality toward prohibiting these drugs? The social consensus is perhaps there but for example the US military has used scheduled drugs. Where exactly is the line here - the US military also uses automatic assault rifles, and most of the US does not. There is the back story to all this on the grounds for drug laws including laws prohibiting tobacco - these grounds aren't necessarily false - but they don't address personal use. Nor do they allow production as far as I am aware - clearly the stuff needs to be produced for studies and other uses so it must be legal at some stage.

It isn't likely to change but the thought is at least there.

To restate the point though - cover the programs but have them cover the cost of insurance.

Don't limit treatment programs limit available funding based on how much people pay and use - on different packages. What programs do you want available - check them off on this list - and this is what you pay. Not everyone who wants a particular program will use it in a given year, but they still pay for it. Supplementary health is still available but people ought to have available programs that fit their unique health needs, genetic backgrounds and family histories and put more resources into those programs.

Eg. non married sexually active singles may want more money put into STD care.

Blacks may like more for sickle sell anemia care

Asians for lactose intolerance

gay males people for anal care.

women for anal care

men for male sexual system related medicine

women for ovarian care.

People should be able to indicate where they want their funding to go.

Not paying your money and getting a new MRI machine that services 1000 people each year.

Having it all in health doesn't equate having it all in government services. There are plenty of perfectly healthly people out there who don't need health services that maybe don't wanna see 30% of their tax dollars go to that sector. - and people who just don't care about health even if they are ticking time bombs with do not treat requests.

Didn't cigarettes go from 4$ a pack to over 10$ a pack for health costs - it is almost a double standard to tax the cigarettes then not give some type of incentive back.

Can you imagine the false information if something like this were true AND you victimized them as much as they were?

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-1/e1-4.htm

The sad fact here is that many many many things increase the chance of cancer.. from cars to prescription drugs to factories to too much sun..

Are we going to tax and prohibit all of those things.. sadly that equates a pretty dramatic tax increase on every day items and doing regular jobs... going out into the outside of stuff. taxing medical devices like xrays and tons of other stuff...

there is a horrendous focus on this one habit, and true while I think second hand forced stuff ain't good - are people disallowed from driving their cars or producing TV sets and sofas?

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/top-10-foods-that-increase-cancer-risk.html#

NO it is all about life style - since when do people want the government to police their own lifestyles. True some puritans may like that but I'm geussing all the other people don't - and when you add up all the other people Anne Frank would say and then they came for me, or maybe not, the fact is tons of stuff is not good, and the FDA or food safety Canada oks this stuff from floride to cocacola.

We don't need to demonize these things and the choice should be there on an individual level. No need to force it on the general public true - but where do you draw the line - it shouldn't be based on personal bias. The air the water the soil - all bad --- understand this.

The bottom line is quality of life - some people don't want to live converted to some other dudes life style, and they shouldn't have to. They shouldn't be forced into treatment because they arn't mentally capable of consenting to the treatment a doctor wants to force on them and they don't want. People deserve the right of dissent and as much control as possible in what type of programs they want their tax dollars to go to. Life at all costs even at cost of enjoyment of life shouldn't be the prime directive. It should be enjoyment of life at all cost even at cost of life. Of course that doesn't mean we need to be reckless and we should know where the line of responsible living is but, people are made to die. Teach responsibility not subjectivity and captivity.

Edited September 5, 2010 by William Ashley

[G.P. Lehmann]

The anti smoking lobbyists always need a new project. Smokers have been banned from restaurants, bars, patios, in front of public buildings, in cars with kids, in transports and recently in Vancouver they have been banned from smoking outside on the boardwalk. There are anti-smoking ads on TV, in schools, newspapers. They even have shirtless speakers traveling to high schools scaring kids with their cancer scars. Smoking has been demonized and there are already countless methods and support groups to help smokers quit. If smokers can afford cigarettes they can afford their stop smoking aids. The last thing this government needs is another unnecessary costly program to help people who have the resources to help themselves. The only argument for this would be that it costs the health care system money to treat smoking related illnesses. So the real question should be "Should we have public health care"?

[bloodyminded]

So the real question should be "Should we have public health care"?

The question has been answered innumerable times by an overwhelming majority of Canadians.

So the question begged by your question is: "Should Canadians get to decide whether or not they have public health care"?

Because I put it to you that the answer is manifestly obvious. In fact, and this seems almost ironic--since by far the majority of Canadians wish to keep a publicly-funded system, to do away with it would constitute a statist opposition to democratic will.

[P. McGee]

The cost of smoking aids may not be not very large compared to the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses they would seem to help people avoid, and the provinces pay for that anyway. On the other hand I'm not sure I'm convinced that nicotine supplements are an effective way to quit smoking. They also seem to be incredibly overpriced considering that the nicotine itself would not seem to be expensive to obtain when you're not paying taxes on the tobacco it comes from. Why is nicotine gum ten times the price of regular gum? I don't believe it's the cost of the nicotine.

Both tobacco companies and the makers of nicotine patches and gums seem to have a financial interest in people staying addicted to nicotine, since a successful quitter is a lost customer. I also think that both parties benefit financially from the myth that quitting smoking by willpower alone is nearly impossible.

[Molly]

Smoking has been demonized and there are already countless methods and support groups to help smokers quit.

Methods and support groups? Helping? Riiiiight.

Chantix costs a little over $30/week for about a dozen weeks, and has a huge success rate. Handing it out gratis would pay for itself in a matter of a few months at most. The money spent demonizing smokers could easily provide the concrete means for very, very many to actually quit-- but folks get wa-ay too much thrill out of holier-than-thou posturing for that to ever happen.

[bloodyminded]

The cost of smoking aids may not be not very large compared to the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses they would seem to help people avoid, and the provinces pay for that anyway. On the other hand I'm not sure I'm convinced that nicotine supplements are an effective way to quit smoking. They also seem to be incredibly overpriced considering that the nicotine itself would not seem to be expensive to obtain when you're not paying taxes on the tobacco it comes from. Why is nicotine gum ten times the price of regular gum? I don't believe it's the cost of the nicotine.

Both tobacco companies and the makers of nicotine patches and gums seem to have a financial interest in people staying addicted to nicotine, since a successful quitter is a lost customer. I also think that both parties benefit financially from the myth that quitting smoking by willpower alone is nearly impossible.

I agree with your every point here, but I'd like to add some clarificaiton about "willpower."

One of the major discoveries in the exploding scentific/medical knowledge that's been garnered about the human brain is how important are the individual distinctions. While we tend to think of things like "willpower" as little more than a character trait, a matter of personal toughness, it would appear this isn't (or at least not always) the case.

for selfish reasons, I'd enjoy agreeing with the standard view on willpower and smoking; I successfully quit, and I found it to be somewhat easier than I'd feared. But this could (in fact, most likely does) have more to do with the chemical and genetic makeup of my brain than with my "strong willpower."

Addictions are simply and irrefutably not the same for everybody...on a biological level, I mean.