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...that operate with impunity? Look for it at your local reserve. 

Lives and revenue up in smoke:Blizzard

Illegal tobacco is big business — and our children are drawn to cheap, contraband cigarettes

By Christina Blizzard

Let’s be clear what the illegal tobacco trade is all about.
It’s often portrayed as the local first nation up the road generously opening up a smoke shack to sell off a few of its tax-free smokes to local nicotine addicts.
That’s a myth.
What we’re talking about is big, organized crime destroying communities and hooking young children early on cheap smokes that will eventually kill them.
We’re talking about the government’s inability and lack of will to deal with native groups on any law-and-order issue.
Illegal tobacco is big business.
The provincial auditor general estimates it accounts for $500 million in unpaid taxes. The RCMP says massive cross-border smoke smuggling fuels the drugs and guns trade.
Michael Perley of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco says young people are attracted to illegal cigarettes because they’re cheap.
“The first nations sensitivity issue is there, it needs to be dealt with, but the fact is more and more kids are accessing contraband. More and more adults are not stopping smoking because they can buy cheap cigarettes and the province is losing money,” he told a news conference Thursday.
A 2007-08 study estimates almost one in four smokers has purchased contraband cigarettes. Illegal smokes make up 30% of the total market.
The rest of us law-abiding folk live in a province where a convenience store owner can go out of business for selling smokes to an underage customer.
Yet cops turn a blind eye to the countless native smoke shacks that sell cheap cigarettes to anyone — no matter what their age.
Perley brought some of the packaging with him to make a point. Unbranded clear plastic bags containing 200 cigarettes are being sold for as little as $10.
Reserves are allowed a quota of legal tobacco products, which are then routinely sold off-reserves in smoke shacks. A pack of 25 cigarettes that would cost between $8.50-$9.50 legally costs just $4.25.
Perley wants the government to revamp that quota system and implement other enforcement measures to get cheap cigarettes out of the hands of young people.
In eastern Ontario, the Cornwall Regional Task force is being restarted to deal with the intimidation of local residents and the booming smoke smuggling business across the Akwasasne Mohawk reserve that straddles the border.
Perley would like to see municipal police forces across the province take a greater part in seizure and enforcement.
No one is trying to deny aboriginal people their unique status in this province, but by its refusal to take any meaningful action, the government is simply enabling this massive criminal activity to continue with impunity.
And no, for the record, I don’t smoke. Can’t stand the smell of it. But I also don’t believe smokers are somehow wicked.
The truly evil people are those who would sell cigarettes to children. And the big, fat hypocrite is a government that brings in anti-smoking legislation that is so strict, people struggling to make a legal living are put out of business. Legislation so ludicrous, frail and aging residents of old folks’ home freeze to death trying to find somewhere to smoke legally. A government that bans flavoured cigars — but you can buy anything you want illegally. A government that makes money from smokers through taxes.
They won’t raise a finger to punish the real villains who are making millions selling black market cigarettes to kids in school.
They might just as well hand out coffin nails.
christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca