“Today’s data—from Canada’s 2010/11 Youth Smoking Survey (YSS)—shows that the tobacco industry’s flavoured products appeal to many more Ontario kids than we previously thought,” said Ontario Coalition Against Tobbaco’s Director Michael Perley on Monday. “The industry has avoided a 2009 ban on flavours in small filtered cigars by simply increasing the size of their products, which in turn has exempted them from the ban. There is only one way to deal with this industry’s efforts to seduce our kids with flavours: eliminate the latter outright.”

The tobacco industry circumventing regulations in order to sell greater amounts of their product to a naive consumer base? No. Not tobacco companies.  I won’t hear of this slanderous —

Oh right. Tobacco companies have been targeting youth forever. Even candy cigarettes have been regulated so that their branding cannot resemble real cigarette branding. You can’t get Popeye cigarettes anymore, you can only get “candy sticks”, without the red tip so as not to look like a lit cigarette. We’ve made it extremely difficult for tobacco companies to replenish their dying market base, but they’re still finding ways to circuitously target the cool kids.

The first cigarette I ever smoked was a Winston. It tasted like soot and had I been offered a watermelon flavoured cigarillo instead, I would have gladly accepted. So would any kid. It’s common sense that children will be more likely to try something that is more pleasingly flavoured. I’m not an anti-tobacco advocate by any means, but I do find the willingness of these companies to find new ways to entice youngsters troubling. I think the great Norm Macdonald sums it up well in this clip.

The push for a ban on these products seems like the only way to stop the relentless youth marketing strategies that tobacco companies employ. To me, it’s not that they do it—kids will always want to smoke, tobacco interests will always want kids to smoke— it’s the sneakiness of it that annoys me. Increasing the size of your cigarillos (Hey kids! Not only do our cool cigarette-cigar hybrids come in wacky flavours there’s more tobacco goodness in each puff!) to sidestep the Tobacco Act is not something lawmakers should let slide, just on principle if not because of the obvious health risks.

Alana Kronstal's new public awareness campaign aims to cut Nunavut's sky-high smoking rates.

On the streets of Iqaluit, cheery Alana Kronstal is known as “the tobacco lady.” Young and old, everyone seems to know the 31-year-old, who is leading the charge against smoking in Nunavut, home of the highest smoking rates in Canada. “Nowhere in Canada has a campaign been launched starting with such a majority of smokers,” Kronstal says. “We’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done yet.”

The statistics are staggering when compared to the rest of the country: according to Statistics Canada, 53 percent of the Nunavut population smokes and private studies cite numbers as high as 70 percent among the territory’s predominantly Inuit population. Children as young as two pick butts off the street to imitate their parents. Studies show up to 80 percent of the territory’s pregnant women smoke.

Luckily for the anti-smoking faction, the federal government has granted Kronstal and her team $700,000 for a new public awareness campaign. Tentatively called Tobacco Has No Place Here, the PSA will focus on challenging the cultural norm of smoking in Nunavut. Kronstal’s team has hired two firms (one local) to grab the territory’s attention through social media buzz, YouTube vignettes, community feasts during the campaign’s rollout in January, an art installation in Iqaluit, and more.

“We’re a small community spread over a vast landscape. People know each other well,” says Kronstal, who has worked on smaller-scale campaigns in the Northwest Territories. “If we share personal stories, put a face to this issue, celebrate individuals who’ve successfully quit smoking, we’re getting somewhere.”

While sky-high lung cancer and tuberculosis rates are often overshadowed by Nunavut’s other struggles—high suicide rates, substance abuse, isolation, and poverty—Kronstal believes her campaign can change lives: “It’s having a very real impact on people’s health and the life expectancy of an entire population.”

Nunavut’s campaign is currently partially funded under the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy. Since the strategy launched 10 years ago, nationwide smoking rates have dropped to 21 percent, leaving the government to wonder if it still needs to invest in getting people to quit. The funding strategy is currently up for renewal, and Kronstal isn’t sure what will happen in Nunavut if it’s canned. “Is it a done deal now? Obviously for some of the provinces, the issue [of smoking] has changed,” she says. “But for people in Nunavut, it’s not a dead issue. It’s not an issue that’s been solved yet.”

Four of the country’s 16 medical schools admitted to accepting research-targeted grants between 1996 and 1999, and three said they accepted donations, which are not tied to specific research projects. The average grant was for more than $160,000, while the average donation came in at $18,000. “It’s not surprising that the tobacco industry gives money to medical schools,” says Joanna Cohen, the study’s principal researcher. “I am disappointed that the medical schools would actually take the money.”

The figures might actually be much higher considering five medical schools refused to disclose financial information.

Cohen can’t name the schools that admitted to accepting the cash because researchers promised respondents they would remain anonymous. “Anonymity is a common research practice as far as individuals are concerned, so we decided to extend this to the universities, to take all precautions to get the best results.”

None of the schools that participated in the study has a policy preventing it from accepting money from the tobacco industry. Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, says that’s a huge problem and something medical schools have to change soon. “It was a little bit of a hidden issue,” says Callard. “But now it’s been brought to light and something should be done about it.”

In Australia, 70 percent of medical faculties have policies against accepting tobacco funds. Unfortunately, things do not seem to be moving very quickly here in Canada. Audrey Cheung, director of research grants at U of T, says the school has no policy regarding the acceptance of tobacco funding, nor does the university plan on adopting a ban. “I’m not aware of any move in that direction,” she says, “either at the university or at the faculty level.”