A "Highschool Educated" logical look at Canada's Tobacco Strategy and its target of 5% smoking rates by 2035 (A thread for @PattyHajdu @GovCanHealth and my "new friend" @PamDamoff)
Charts... mine
Let us begin.
Let us begin.
"Vaping threatens the progress we have made in reducing smoking to this point"
Exactly what progress have we made?
"Well we went from 49.5% prevalence in 1965 to less than 15% in 2019. Look at this chart and bask in our magnificence"
Exactly what progress have we made?
"Well we went from 49.5% prevalence in 1965 to less than 15% in 2019. Look at this chart and bask in our magnificence"
Did you account for population growth?
"Ummm"
Cause it looks quite a bit different if you look at the change in the number of smokers year on year...
"errrr"
Here, look at this chart...
"Ummm"
Cause it looks quite a bit different if you look at the change in the number of smokers year on year...
"errrr"
Here, look at this chart...
"That's just a line... you can make a line look like anything"
Fine... here is the raw data.
Fine... here is the raw data.
Between 1981 and 2019 (38 years) all of those taxes, all of the ostracization, all of the dehumanizing messaging and derision... you cut the physical number of smokers in the country by half.
"But... but... but... 15%!"
And let's not forget, 45000 a year die from smoking-related illness... so you can't take credit for 1.7 million of them, they took themselves out of the stats.
38 years... your efforts took us from 9.5M to 6M smokers on the rough and dirty.
And let's not forget, 45000 a year die from smoking-related illness... so you can't take credit for 1.7 million of them, they took themselves out of the stats.
38 years... your efforts took us from 9.5M to 6M smokers on the rough and dirty.
Your efforts to date have resulted in an average annual reduction of smokers in the range of 92,000. Of course not counting for the ones who died from causes that were NOT smoking-related.
So there are only a few things that could realistically get this country to a smoking rate of less than 5% by 2035...
#1 More immigration, with policies that exclude smokers from applying.
#2 You could hammer through those "Very low nicotine cigarettes" so that the nicotine-dependent smoke more and die faster.
#3 You could just start holding public executions. It's not a big leap from enacting policies that will result in continued mortality of a population segment to actively accelerating it.
#4 Then there are always eugenics and sterilization programs. That's been done here before with a different population subset.
#5 oh I know... we can round up all the smokers and put them in like... relocation camps... because you know, they are dangerous to the rest of us...
"Now you are just being silly"
"Now you are just being silly"
Or, you could leverage all available tools to help smokers either quit outright, or failing that, avoid the majority of the harms associated with the most hazardous nicotine delivery system on the planet.
"Vaping? Why the $%^& would we want to encourage vaping?"
Because you are going to need all the help you can get. Think of it like seatbelts.
Because you are going to need all the help you can get. Think of it like seatbelts.
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