NDP wants to ban all flavoured tobacco products in Ontario, including menthol

TORONTO – New Democrat France Gelinas is making another attempt to pass legislation outlawing all flavoured tobacco products in Ontario, including menthol cigarettes.

Gelinas says she made a mistake in her first private member’s bill that banned flavoured cigarellos because companies exploited a loophole by simply adding a little more tobacco to the product.

She says since then, tobacco companies introduced dozens of new candy and fruit flavours and new products such as lozenges, all of it in packaging aimed at youth.

So this time Gelinas is proposing a total ban on all flavoured tobacco, which she says “big tobacco” is using to develop the next generation of smokers.

The NDP health critic was joined at a Queen’s Park news conference by several teens who say they’re tired of the manipulative efforts of tobacco companies to target them.

Gelinas says most adults probably wouldn’t recognize the flavoured products as something containing tobacco, while teens can probably name another 30 flavours and tobacco-laced products being marketed at them.