Tobacco Ad Ban in Canada Kindles Fire Under Congress

Canada’s tough new anti-smoking laws banning print advertising and requiring disclosure of cigarette ingredients have encouraged advocacy groups in the United States to demand similar legislation.

“A big part of it is the Canadian bill that shows such legislation can work and is not just pie in the sky,” said Phil Wilbur, director of Advocacy Institute, a health research center in Washington.

About 100 anti-smoking bills are pending before Congress, including one drafted by Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.) to restrict print advertising and another by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) to eliminate the tax deductibility of tobacco advertising.

Rep. Tom Lukin (D-Ohio) has asked the Justice Department to look into whether product placement in movies that might appear on television violates the current advertising ban.

“The mood in the United States has changed. The swing is against the special interests represented by the tobacco companies,” Wilbur said in a telephone interview.

He said many of the bills were drafted after Canada led the way. Canada’s smoking ban on airline flights of less than 2 hours’ duration in 1987 preceded similar legislation in the United States.

In 1987, the Conservative government also considered a complete ban on smoking but opted instead for the restrictive Tobacco Products Control Act that banned newspaper and magazine advertising and required cigarette companies to disclose to the Health Department the ingredients in their cigarettes.

A ban on billboard advertising takes effect next January and tobacco companies have also been ordered to halt sponsorships of sports and cultural events.

Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-Smokers Rights Assn. in Toronto credited with leading the anti-smoking campaign, said the United States will be under pressure to pass its own Tobacco Products Control Act.

“Americans have a great appreciation of the value of disclosure and this bill is an example,” Mahood said.

“American legislators will be hard pressed to tell Americans why, when the industry (in Canada) is disclosing the toxic constituents of second-hand smoke, that information should be privileged in the United States.”

The Canadian law has infuriated tobacco companies, which are going to ingenious lengths to avoid the disclosure clause.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C. said in January that it was changing the recipe of its four brands sold in Canada-- Winston, Camel, Salem and More --to get around the disclosure regulation.

“The company doesn’t have to give the recipe to any other government. To protect the confidentiality (of ingredients) it made a switch on the Canadian product,” said Jeffrey Labow of RJR Macdonald Inc., the Canadian subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds.

Labow said the new brands went on sale 3 weeks ago and it is still too early to estimate the impact on sales. However, the company said its research indicated that people who tried them “don’t see any difference whatsoever.”

U.S. cigarette makers want to protect their tiny niche in Canada, where imports have a 1% market share. The market is expected to improve under the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement, which will reduce or eliminate tariffs on imported American cigarettes.

Statistics Canada, the government’s reporting agency, estimated that there were 5.6 million smokers in the country in 1986. While the number of male smokers has declined, a growing number of women seem to be taking up the habit, it said.

Canada’s three tobacco companies, RJR Macdonald, Imperial Tobacco Ltd. and Rothmans Benson & Hedges Inc., have launched separate court challenges of the Tobacco Products Control Act.

RJR Macdonald, in documents filed in the Quebec Superior Court, charges that the legislation violates freedom of speech guarantees in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The company also says the law puts Canadian cigarette companies at a disadvantage because the advertising ban does not apply to foreign magazines. About 60% of cigarette advertising read by Canadians appears in U.S. publications.

In the United States, the American Bar Assn., along with the newspaper and magazine publishing industries, vigorously opposed similar legislation suggested 2 years ago.