Source: Canada Newswire (CNW) (ca)
Date: 2010-01-28
Author: NON-SMOKERS\' RIGHTS ASSOCIATION

The Non-Smokers\' Rights Association (NSRA) issued a sharp rebuke
today to the tobacco industry\'s most recent call for a rollback
in tobacco taxes. The health association released a critique by
former World Health Organization economist Emmanuel Guindon in
response to a Canadian Convenience Store Association study
earlier this month that purported to justify tobacco tax cuts.
The CCSA study claims that the tobacco tax rollbacks of 1994 had
no impact on smoking rates or per capita consumption. This study
is the latest stage of a campaign to force governments to cut
tobacco taxes.

"The CCSA is the friendly neighbourhood face of Canadian Big
Tobacco," said NSRA director of policy Melodie Tilson. "The claim
in its analysis that giving Canadians in many provinces half
price cigarettes in 1994 had no effect on consumption is utter
nonsense. In fact, the increase in the use of tobacco industry
products caused by the 1994 tax rollbacks will lead to the deaths
of thousands of Canadians in the future." . . .

Condemnation of the CCSA for releasing a wrong-headed analysis
of the 1994 tobacco tax rollbacks has been expressed by many
health organizations including Physicians for a Smoke-Free
Canada. The CCSA study has also been severely criticized by a
group of Quebec economists with Analysis Group on behalf of the
Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. The two reports appear at
www.nsra-adnf.ca.