here's to big tobacco

Quite possibly the hardest thing that I have ever done was to quit smoking but, after nearly 15 years of carelessly puffing away, I finally began to realize just how stupid the whole thing was. It didn't hurt that at 33 I was having trouble walking up stairs without losing my breath and often kept myself awake at night listening to my own wheezing. So after about 8 tries I quit and now, 3 years later I couldn't feel better.

I am now one of those dreaded ex-smokers. While I don't usually preach to people who still smoke (it never worked for me), I do advocate for the complete ban of smoking anywhere that me or my family may be exposed to it and I applaud our provincial government for its stance on tobacco.

Last Friday the BC government won a landmark victory over the multi-national tobacco giants. The BC Court of Appeal has rendered a unanimous verdict that will allow our province the right to sue for recovery of tobacco-related health care costs. I couldn't be happier about this ruling and I sincerely hope that this is the final nail in the coffins of big tobacco in this province.

Tobacco use in our province accounts for approximately $1.25 billion in health care costs and it kills nearly 6000 British Columbians every year. Some of these have never smoked! Given the challenges that we currently face and projected costs in BC, I think its great that we may have found an innovative new way to finance health care. The only thing better to me would be an outright ban on tobacco!