In Canada, The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, which contains a proposed ban on flavored tobacco products, cleared the Senate committee on social affairs Wednesday, and is expected to fly through the Senate as a whole later this fall, the Vancouver Sun reported.
The Act would ban “kiddie packs” of little flavored cigars called cigarillos, and prohibit flavor and additives in tobacco products, with the exception of menthol. Fruit- and candy-flavored cigarillos available in flavors such as chocolate, grape and tropical punch would no longer be available for sale in Canada if the law went into effect. In addition the law would ban all tobacco advertising in outlets where they could be viewed or read by kids.
At the senate hearing Wednesday, tobacco industry representatives said Canada should have gone the same route as Australia, which banned tobacco products that taste sweet or fruity, but not the additives that make the flavors, which is what Canada has proposed.
Debra Steger, an expert in international trade law and spokeswoman for Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, asserted that Health Canada put the bill together too fast and didn’t “do its homework.”
But retailers in the U.S. don’t need to worry about their shipments of cigarellos being affected. A Health Canada official told the Senate committee Wednesday the bill is intended only to apply to the manufacturing of products intended for the Canadian market. Therefore American blended cigarettes manufactured in Quebec can continue to be exported, even if they contain any of the flavors and additives banned in Canada.
