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Raphael Alexander: Big Hypocrisy in Ontario's pursuit of Big Tobacco  

Tobacco companies are the last refuge from which government can squeeze an endless supply of money. . . .

Am I really arguing in favour of Big Tobacco? That evil entity that kills the “size of a small city” every year in associated diseases? No. But I am saying that this has less to do with the inherent risks of smoking than it does the failings of having a single-payer health care system. If a millionaire wanted to smoke, for instance, and then take responsibility for his own decisions by paying for his treatment privately, then it wouldn’t be the business of the rest of society. Of government. Of Big Tobacco. It would be his decision as a consumer; nothing more, and nothing less.

The $50-billion figure comes from the represented costs the province says it has footed for providing care to smokers for 50 years. But the hypocrisy of this figure is staggering. 50 years ago, tobacco companies were advertising in the mainstream, smoking was socially acceptable and even encouraged, and medical knowledge pertaining to the inherent dangers of cigarettes and their carcinogenic properties were sketchy. In 1955 doctors smoked in the very hospitals where they treated their patients. In fact, they were doing that in 1975. . . .

And Big Tobacco has a good point to make. Government hasn’t had a problem with the billions of dollars collected in associated taxes that the companies paid in good faith as a legitimate and legal product. People have known the health risks of smoking for at least the past 25 years. But government has enjoyed the taxes too much to simply do what they probably should have done in the first place, instead of this agonizingly slow and tedious prohibition-by-stages.

As I said, it’s easy to blame evil tobacco companies. But our complicity is self-evident in not just government policy, but our inflexible health care system.

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