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The War on Flavour
Tobacco regulation, in bad taste
I suppose Anti smoking activists, and like mined do-gooders spent the holidays celebrating the Ontario Legislature's land slide move to ban "candy flavored" cigarillos. For there own health, I just hope they didn't down to much Triple sec, or cheesecake while they danced all over our liberties.
I'm not going to spend much time addressing the moral ramifications of Government telling us what we can buy, sell, or ingest of our own free will. I'm going to do something much more pragmatic. I'm going to lay out the saddening, unintended consequences of this blunder, and the total ignorance it was predicated on.
So, what are candy flavored cigarillos, and why are politicians so afraid of them? Well, firstly "Candy Flavored" is not quite an adequate term, not unless "Peaches", "Cherries", "Honey", and "Mint" are now classified as "Candies". A cigarillo, flavored or not, is a small machine made cigar. Like regular cigars they vary widely in quality, but unlike regular cigars, the cheaper brands often have a flavor additive either infused into the tobacco, or applied to the business end, for your enjoyment. This isn't some new machination on the part of the evil tobacco companies, it's a decades old innovation.
What Ontario's heroic legislature doesn't understand, is that the flavoring isn't applied to attract any particular demographic, it's applied for the usual reason that artificial flavoring is applied to anything humans ingest. Specifically, to mask the actual flavour of the main ingredients, or lack there of. Unenhanced by additives, a low quality cigarillo will either taste of hot air, or the low quality tobacco that it's comprised of. This isn't a scam, it's just a characteristic of the place that this sort of product has in the market.
It's exactly the same with tea, coffee, or distilled alcohol. Blending of different stock is employed to create interesting flavors, and achieve brand consistency from year to year. However, blending, and especially blending the best stock, almost always results in a more expensive product.
Using flavor additives to spice up a stock that is naturally bland, or foul tasting is a trick as old as civilisation. For example, adding pepper to stale meat, brown sugar to oat meal, or bag pipes to the new Hockey Night in Canada theme. Some smokers are perfectly happy to smoke unflavored low end cigarillos, some aren't, and flavoring is one way that the producers of cigarillos can provide a few more choices. Facts aside, the idea that "candy flavor" or colorful packaging attracts children to smoking, is it's self, infantile at best.
Firstly, these children we are talking about are not five year olds. They are teenagers. When was the last time you saw a fifteen year old making an attempt at grown up behaviour by licking a lolly-pop? This is the assumption, isn't it? Teens don't smoke for the same reasons that adults do, right? They are just trying to ape adults, right?
Even if you believe that, it's as academic as it is contradictory. A teenager doesn't have to get a fake ID, or go through the hassle and embarrassment of talking an adult into booting a pixie stick for them. In short, the flavours are as irrelevant to the issue, as the packaging. After all, What color is the packaging for a Raspberry flavored cigarillo supposed to be? ...Orange? Teenagers aren't smoking flavored cigarillos because they find bright colors irresistible. As under-aged as they are, they're thinking human beings, with there own preferences, prejudices, and personalities. They are not a flock of Toucans foraging for tropical fruit.
I'm not suggesting that there isn't a little herd mentality at play, but you don't have to be a teenager to participate in that. Adults for example, vote in elections all the time. The packaging is usually bright primary colors and the flavors, though fruity, tend to leave a bad after taste. Really-- and lets be honest with ourselves, a more likely explanation for the bright, bold faced design of tobacco packaging also explains the increasingly large buttons on some remote controls. Many of us are getting on in years, and our eyesight isn't getting any better. Another obvious explanation is that more eye catching packaging is just the natural response to various government attempts to make tobacco products virtually invisible to consumers. (Does this not call into question the entire premise of the ban?)
Speaking of visibility, lets have a little visual context. Here is an example of a flavored cigarillo product. I deliberately chose the same example that I saw adorning an article that supported the ban on "Candy Flavor".
Mmmmm. Yummy looking. Guess what flavour that is. Peach? Nope... RUM. That's right. Those dirty tobacco companies are trying to encourage drinking too. However, does that packaging really look like it's meant to entice this guy?
Good luck. It's far more likely to attract THIS guy.
If tobacco companies really wanted to entice teenagers on teen-aged terms, they would do better to emulate popular album covers, which can't exactly be described as "Candy Like"-- unless blood splatters, barbed wire, and thorns are now classified as "candy" too. Even when teenagers do apply bright colours, the aesthetics can be inscrutable. Let's assume that the tobacco companies really made an effort at this. How successful would they be?
The sheer lack of thought that went into this legislation is evidenced by what it's originators felt to be a sufficiently vivid illustration of the alleged danger. Apparently, they discovered that $1 cigarillos could easily be purchased within a couple kilometers of the legislature! They have convenience stores in Toronto too? Shocking. I did not know that.
I wonder if they took a moment to reward themselves for there dogged investigation with a hot dog and diet coke, or should I say phosphates, sorbates, aspartame, and sophoric acid? That wouldn't be my first choice, but I'm not interested in making other people's choices for them. I don't think I should be allowed to, and seeing as I apparently know more about cigarillos both flavoured and plain, than 107 MPPs (that's Ontario speak for MLA), I think it's a fair assertion that Government in general shouldn't be allowed to do this either.
Whenever I get in a friendly discussion with people on this issue, I usually get slapped with that cliche about throwing the baby out with the bath water. What the people slapping me don't understand, is that what the baby is being bathed in is not water, but gasoline. This is where the unintended consequences come in.
In this case, "Consequences" is really as inadequate a term as "Candy Flavored".
This legislation will be down right counterproductive.
Why? Firstly, this will hurt the poor, and those who are trying to kick cigarettes. In the case of those who have little money to spare, one of the few pleasures that the poverty stricken have available to them is smoking. When you have virtually no cash flow, a single cigarillo is an easier purchase than a pack of cigarettes. Banning the "Candy Flavored" cigarillos will leave only the more expensive non-flavored cigarillos available. Even worse, an extra bit of stupidity tacked onto this disastrous law is that cigarillos of any description will now have to be sold in packages of twenty, rather than as singles. At $20 a package for cigarillos, cigarettes will be a better buy.
This brings us to those who are using cigarillos as a means to wean themselves off tobacco all together. A common tactic of those trying to quit, is to switch from packs of cigarettes, to singles of cigarillos. There are three reasons for this. Even when filtered, the smoke from a cigarillo is more difficult to inhale. It's a much rougher smoke, and flavor additives actually make it harder to inhale. Also, the nicotine is absorbed through the mouth rather than the lungs. This is less efficient a delivery, so the behavioural aspect of the craving is satisfied while the dose of addictive nicotine is lower. Finally, it's already illegal to sell cigarettes as singles. Good job government.
If people have no choice, but to buy cigarillos in packs of twenty, the benefit of buying singles when you really need them will be wiped out. Instead of making a big effort to go to a store and nail the craving with a small purchase of one or two cigarillos, having an entire pack burning a hole in there pockets will just draw people back into the trap of chain smoking.
Confusing? Here is an analogy. Imagine that you are trying to improve your diet. You have a problem with doughnuts. You love doughnuts. You know they are bad for you, and yet you eat way to many of them. In order to kick your habit you decide to switch off those cheap frosted death rings that are sold in boxes of twelve, and start eating pastries. Satisfying your craving with twelve cheap doughnuts involves the same amount of hassle as buying a slightly more expensive single pastry. You have to go to the bakery, stand in line, and communicate with a clerk. The benefit is not that this one pastry is more expensive than a single doughnut, and it's only a little better for your health. The benefit is that you come away from the bakery, satisfy your craving, and are now going about your business. It will be a long time before your craving overtakes your judgment, and you talk yourself into going back to the bakery for more.
What do you think would have happened if you had totally lost control and bought yourself a box of cheap doughnuts instead? You would have eaten them. Not one or two a day, but ALL of them. One after the other. A box of doughnuts siting on your desk during a stressful day at work, or a box of doughnuts on the car seat next to you while your stuck in traffic, or a box of doughnuts on the floor while your watching YouTube videos from the Anti Smoking League...
...The effect will be the same. With regular cravings, a BOX of doughnuts within arm's reach is not the way to manage your habit.
NOW, imagine that government has gotten the bright idea that pastries are just to delicious for your own good. Some of them have cherries or strawberries on top. It's an atrocity. They BAN pastries with "Fruit Flavoring" and require that plain pastries can only be sold in boxes of twelve, just like those crappy frosted doughnuts you were trying to escape from. Seeing as the doughnuts cost far less than the pastries, and they are more widely available... You do the math.
This brings us to the problem of teenagers smoking. The above issues apply equally to teens. They buy cigarillos because it's a cheaper option than a pack of cigarettes. In terms of getting around the age restrictions, buying cigarettes is no more difficult than cigarillos. In fact, it's easier. Cigarillos occupy a small fraction of the total retail shelf space when compared to cigarettes, and some retail outlets don't even bother to carry cigarillos of any type. It's like trying to find black liquorice. More over, even if you could find cigarillos, why buy 20 cigarillos for more than $20 and get less nicotine, when you could buy 25 cigarettes for less than $20 and get more nicotine?... Because of the packaging?
To sum this up, if teens are going to smoke (and you know they will, if they want to) cigarillos, especially the cheap flavored brands are better for there health, relative to cigarettes as they will inhale less smoke, and get a smaller nicotine dose. Even without this backwards legislation, cigarettes are already more abundant and cheaper by the dozen, so if addiction to nicotine is the path to lung cancer, diverting teens towards cigarettes is the wrong thing to do. It's the most stupid thing you COULD do. It's the exact opposite of what I would do at least, but then, what do I know? I'm not an elected representative. After all, they know best.
Finally, we are left with the same problem we have always had, only it will be worse now. Namely, substitution. History has taught us that whenever there is a shortage that's naturally caused, caused indirectly by government action, or caused deliberately through government mandate, people don't just stop. They seek out substitutions.
During the Second World War, nuts and roasted barley were coffee substitutes. German tanks were powered by a gasoline substitute synthesized from coal stolen from Poland, and the Hindenburg was pumped full of hydrogen because helium was not only scarce, but eventually out of reach all together because of a military embargo.
At least that was a real war. Today we have a few fake wars, but there are still plenty of casualties. This "War on Flavour" is really just one battle in the "War on Smoking". If the resulting substitute that teens choose for cigarillos isn't cigarettes, it will be because there is something even more economical, and often just as easily obtained.
One gram of high quality marijuana costs about $20. You get a lot more bang for your buck in this case, and thanks to the War on Drugs, the typical packaging is nothing more than a simple Zip Lock bag.
That's the Black Market. Underground, and yet up-front with the goods. Despite what those in power tell you, some things are not as they appear. Even Nazis.