It has been more than 25 years since the first of 10 Canadian provinces filed a lawsuit against the three major tobacco companies for harms incurred by Canadians from smoking. The mixture of emotions that greeted the recent draft settlement is understandable. It’s the work of bankruptcy lawyers not public health professionals.
One truth stands out: the $32.5 billion proposal is not nearly large enough to compensate for the harms tobacco use has caused Canadians.
The proposed settlement also does little to hasten the day when we might see a tobacco-free Canada.
The settlement does provide important payments to the provinces to help cover health costs, but it is only a fraction of the actual costs associated with the harms of tobacco. And the settlement provides some compensation for tobacco’s victims and their families instead of more years of endless waiting — a good thing.
But, ironically, the continued sale of tobacco products in this country, on a scale craftily designed to allow the industry to pay the settlement, will likely generate further healthcare costs in excess of the sums to be paid out. The tobacco industry will live on unimpaired in its ability to inflict disease, disability and death to Canadians.
We can improve the proposed settlement — there’s still time.
One billion dollars of the settlement is to be used to create a foundation to fund research focused on “improving outcomes in tobacco-related diseases.” This, the draft settlement says, is intended to “indirectly benefit users of tobacco products who are not directly compensated” under the proposed settlement.
While $1B constitutes only three per cent of the overall settlement proposal, the new foundation would still be among Canada’s largest non-profit organizations.
The problem, however, is that we really don’t need this sizeable sum to be spent learning more about the diagnosis and treatment of conditions caused by tobacco. We already know this.
The $1B fund should be used instead in the best and most effective way to help Canadians impacted by tobacco products now, as well as to prevent the creation of a new generation of people addicted to nicotine.
The money could be far more useful to Canadians in three key areas of tobacco control: robust efforts to prevent future use of tobacco and control the industry; further public awareness of the harms of those tobacco-industry products; and on smoking cessation programs.
This is what happened in the United States when their Master Settlement Agreement with the big tobacco companies was approved in 1998 — yes, they did it 26 years ago! The U.S. created and funded on an ongoing basis from tobacco sales (not just one lump sum), the American Legacy Foundation, later called the Truth Initiative, with the slogan: “Inspiring lives free from smoking, vaping and nicotine.”
The Truth Initiative is clear about what they do: “We provide the facts about smoking, vaping, nicotine, and the tobacco industry. We engage individuals and groups to make change in their communities, innovate ways to end nicotine addiction, and join forces with collaborators committed to preventing youth and young adult nicotine addiction and empowering quitting for all.”
Why can’t Canada have the same?
Many stakeholders in Canada, including Heart & Stroke, have advocated during the years-long negotiation of the Canadian settlement that a similar investment and preventative and educational approach is needed in Canada.
It can still happen.
The wording of the mandate for this $1B fund could be changed. This change
is not just feasible; it is vital. It would make a huge difference to what could be achieved by this new foundation in the coming years.
We need to help people who currently smoke, not just people who smoked in the past. We need to help prevent others from becoming addicted in the future. And we need to curtail an industry whose products and activities are unrivalled in the suffering they produce and the costs they incur to Canadians.
Given that the proposed settlement may release the tobacco industry from future liability, this is our one shot – we need to get it right.
Tremendous progress has been made over the past few decades, but too many Canadians continue to become addicted to nicotine products that have serious negative impacts on their health and place huge demands on our precious healthcare resources.
Taking steps toward a true tobacco-free generation would be a positive legacy of this settlement. After all the sickness, death and pain tobacco has caused, Canadians deserve better.
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