quit now!

Most of the things that I've posted here so far have been about things that I have a certain amount of passion about. They are things that I've studied, I'm involved with personally or that I feel are interesting enough to share with the world, or at least the small part of it that cares what I think. Whenever possible I try and back up what I say with facts but still, at the end of it all if your reading my blog your getting my views on the things that I feel are important. What a great place we live in! That said, given the number of times that the topic of this particular blog has presented itself to me in the past two days alone, it seems as though this blog was meant to be posted.

Nothing that I have said so far on these pages means anything, compared to what I am about to say. Nothing!

Two years ago I devised a plan to make my workplace tobacco free. It was an ambitious plan that wasn't really received that well by a lot of the people that I work with (roughly 15% of them at least), but the Executive Team liked it and so we began taking steps that would eventually see the end of smoking at the place where I work. Two years later we have significantly changed the way that people smoke there but smoking is still permitted and lately I've found myself faced with a pretty big challenge in implementing the next step. Yesterday I had a telephone conversation with the person at Coastal Health Authority heading up the Tobacco-free sports program. It was a great call and I was very pleased to hear how far ahead we are compared to other companies similar to ours, but at the end of it I really wasn't that much closer to solving the problem I'm faced with right now.

First thing this morning I decided to drop in on our General Manager and get his advise on how to proceed with this project. We talked about the programs successes so far and the challenges we've faced along the way and, most importantly what we can do next. It was a very productive session and I left feeling really good about the idea and motivated to come up with the way to move it forward. Timing being on my side today, I arrived in my office shortly after only to read about yesterdays introduction by the BC Liberals of tougher legislation surrounding tobacco that will make tobacco products "invisible" by January 2008.

I was absolutely ecstatic!

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for about the last 60 years or so, you know that tobacco use (especially smoking) is bad for you. You know that about 6000 British Columbian's will be killed this year directly or indirectly due to tobacco related illness and that some of these people will have never smoked in their lives. Canada wide 50 000 people will die from tobacco use and about 1000 of them will be non-smokers. You may know that tobacco accounts for 90% of all lung cancers, 75% of all emphysema deaths and 25% of all cardiovascular deaths. You may not know that about 4.9 billion people worldwide will die this year because of tobacco.

Then again, you may not care!

Climate change, global warming and other environmental issues being the hot topics these days, you may understand that the cultivation of tobacco has a significant negative impact on the world. Most tobacco is grown in the third world so you may not know just how much land is cleared and fuel is burned to grow and cure the leaf, land that could be used to grow food. You may not know that it is actually difficult to grow tobacco and therefor farmers tend to use a lot of pesticides to guarantee their crops. Since this occurs in the third world most farmers aren't protected from harmful exposure to toxins and pesticides. You may have an idea about the amount of waste smoking and tobacco packaging produces. In Canada its about 2 billion empty cigarette packages and some 50 billion butts, worldwide cigarette butts pile up to a staggering 954 million kilograms.

You may not care that much about this either!

British Columbian's are concerned (with good reason) about the state and future of our health care system. You may know that tobacco use gobbles up about $2.3 billion health care dollars in BC every year, Canada wide the number is about 6 times higher and I can only imagine what the cost world wide is. According to a study completed by the Conference Board of Canada in 1995 tobacco use costs the average employer about $2 565 more per year to employ a smoker versus a non-smoker. Two years ago I figured that my employer probably pays about $7 000 per year just to clean up after our smoking staff and customers.

Its quite possible that you don't care about this any more than my other points!

I took the bus home today. The number 16 down Hastings was packed, noisy and it didn't smell too terribly great either. About halfway through the trip my phone rang and in the midst of all that was around me I tried to listen to my Mom, clearly upset, tell me about her day. She spent it at Vancouver General Hospital where my Dad was getting a biopsy on his throat to hopefully determine the extent of damage that over forty years of smoking has done to him.

This hurts! I can't begin to tell you how much and hopefully you'll never find out on your own.

So... Excuse me while I climb up onto my beloved soapbox! To the 15% of British Columbian's that still smoke and more specifically to those that would like people like me to shut up because its "your habit", "your life" and "your right" to do whatever you want since you are only harming yourself... Your wrong! Your not only harming yourself you are killing everyone around you, including those you love physically, financially and emotionally. Quit Now!

To those of you out there that feel the need to continuously compare the supposed small impact of your habit towards respiratory disease to that of vehicle emissions... Stop it! This is not about comparing apples to oranges and the fact that one thing is probably worse in one respect than another doesn't mean that the other thing is suddenly OK. Then again, if you want to go and take a long haul off of someones tailpipe I guess you'll say that its your right to do so! Quit Now!

To those of you still out there that think we need you to keep smoking because of the supposed significant contribution that you are making to our economy in the way of the taxes you pay on cigarettes... Stop being stupid! The approximate $8 billion dollars of tax revenue generated annually from the sale of tobacco pales considerable when compared to the $15 billion spent in Canada each year to treat tobacco related illness. Quit Now!

After smoking for about 15 years I quit. It took me about 8 different tries and it was probably the most difficult thing that I have ever done, but I did it. Its been 4 years or so since my last cigarette, If I can do it anyone can... Please, quit now!