Doctors' firsthand accounts of tobacco tragedies hit home
CMA News 2000;10(7): 1
Two doctors took a Senate committee on a figurative tour recently to show how the ravages of tobacco produce patients for almost every department in their hospitals.
"I can walk you through every department in my local hospital and show you patients that are there because of tobacco," said Dr. Peter Kuling, a family physician in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans, Ont., and chair of the CMA Tobacco Steering Committee. "There's the man in the ER fighting his third myocardial infarction, the woman in the ICU with end-stage lung cancer and the tiny infant in the neonatal ICU born too small because mom smoked."
"These are just a few of the cases I see every day," he added. "I can show you how tobacco is involved in everything I do."
 | Advertisements like this spoof of a well-known US tobacco company's promotional campaign are part of the effort to encourage American youth not to start smoking. If Senator Colin Kenny gets his way a portion of the cost of every cigarette sold in Canada will go to funding youth-oriented education and prevention campaigns here |
Dr. David Esdaile, president of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and also a family physician in the Ottawa area, joined Dr. Kuling in his presentation. Both of their presentations held the senators' attention. Esdaile, a veteran of appearances before parliamentary committees and other politicians, summed up why he continues the battle for more stringent tobacco laws, higher taxes and more political action on the tobacco front.
"Family physicians and specialists see an enormous amount of the unpreventable tragedy that is part of life," he said. "We would love to think that the incredible burden of preventable disease and premature death that tobacco represents could be removed from the next generation of doctors."
The presentation was made in support of Senator Colin Kenny's Bill S-20, which would impose a levy on tobacco products to fund tobacco-control programs aimed at youth. That idea is not new — it has been a tremendous success in California, where youth-smoking rates have plummeted to around 11%, compared with Canada's rate of about 29%.
| Dr. Peter Kuling presents Senator Colin Kenny with petitions signed by CMA News readers in support of Bill S-20, the Tobacco Youth Protection Act |  |
Kenny had a similar bill passed by the Senate last year, but it was struck down in the House of Commons on a technicality. Last year the CMA General Council passed a resolution supporting a levy of 0.6 cents per cigarette to help defray the costs of tobacco-intervention programs.
"Bill S-20 is not new and much of its core has been tried and found to work in California," said Dr. Esdaile. "One of its major features is that it removes tobacco from partisan politics, where it has been allowed to thrive over the years."
Bill S-20 would charge a levy of $1.50 on every carton of cigarettes produced in Canada. That would translate into an estimated $360-million in revenue, which would be managed by an arm's-length body charged with producing education and advertising programs to reduce the number of Canadian youth who smoke.
The CMA backed up its support of Bill S-20 by presenting almost 100 signed petitions received from CMA News readers in the past month. The bill, still before the Senate at press time, was expected to pass through the Upper Chamber and be sent to the House of Commons for debate when members of Parliament return in the fall.
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© 2000 Canadian Medical Association
