Jump to full article: Globe and Mail (ca), 2006-10-05
Author: GLORIA GALLOWAY
Intro: Anti-tobacco lobbyists are making another bid to force the federal Competition Bureau to explain why it has taken more than three years to determine whether the words light and mild are deceptive when printed on cigarette packages.
The lobbyists -- a group of 11 health professionals including several public-health officers from across Canada -- say in documents filed recently with the Federal Court of Appeal that the delay amounts to "non-performance of statutory duty" on the part of Commissioner Sheridan Scott.
It is a delay that they say has stranded them in a state of limbo and has harmed "the many thousands of Canadians who begin or continue to use tobacco products in the mistaken belief that the products designated 'light' and 'mild' have more benign impacts on human health." . . .
The health professionals, meanwhile, are trying to remain optimistic and believe the case will be heard before the end of the year.
They have been buoyed by court decisions like one in August in which U.S. Judge Gladys Kessler found that tobacco companies distorted the truth about low-tar and light cigarettes to discourage smokers from quitting. She ordered that the terms be removed from packaging.
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