Bill's Bulletin Board

Being a small-C conservative, I would generally enthusiastically favour what a guy like Bob Runciman is up to.

But his latest move has me wondering why he's only going after half the target.

Runciman, a Progressive Conservative, is the interim opposition leader in the provincial legislature at Queen s Park. Last week, the party's office issues a media release, stating Runciman was taking the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty to task for not doing enough to crack down on the sale of illegal cigarettes. Instead, according to the party, lawabiding families are being expected to pay for that lapse through higher taxes.

"There are no taxes being collected on these cigarettes and the government is simply allowing this to happen," Runciman was quoted as saying in the release. "The government is turning a blind eye to illegal operations, some with ties to organized crime who use the profits to purchase illegal guns."

"Instead of shrugging their shoulders over the loss of $600 million and whacking law-abiding Ontarians with a new $60 million tire tax, the McGuinty Liberals should get to work enforcing the rule of law."

Runciman went on to charge that one in three cigarettes smoked in Ontario is contraband.

It's obvious there is a living to be made in dealing with smuggled smokes. Indeed, I have read several accounts that state that's how Paul Bernardo was supporting himself before society started picking up the tab for his room and board.

I don't have a great deal of trouble with what Runciman is advocating, but I have trouble understanding why he, and others like him, refuse to go a couple of steps further, like imposing even more restrictions on the use of tobacco, if not banning it all together.

As I see it, the situation boils down to simple economics. People like Bernardo have been able to turn a buck with contraband tobacco, not so much because they were able to obtain supplies, but because there was demand. What we need to be doing is taking steps to reduce the demand. In other words, Runciman's attack should be on two levels.

A good way to reduce demand is to make smoking too expensive, and that can be accomplished by raising taxes on tobacco. True, there is a tobacco lobby that will raise a big stink if that happens. Well, let them. In today's climate, as smoking becomes less and less acceptable, who's going to listen?

It's also true that driving up prices is going to drive more smokers into the underground market, but not all of them, and the rest would be forced to quit for financial reasons. And fewer kids would start smoking because their parttime jobs on the weekends won't cover the cost of many decks of smokes.

I grant I sound a little sanctimonious, but I also have sympathy for people who are hooked on cigarettes. I guess the reason I'm sanctimonious is I am a reformed smoker.

I started in my teens because a lot of my friends smoked and, like all kids, I wanted to be part of the group. In those days, it was a lot easier to smoke. I was in high school at the time, and smoking was allowed on school property. In fact, in inclement weather, us kids were allowed to smoke just inside the doors, at the bottom of the stair wells. The school administration was probably not following the rules to the letter by allowing that, but as long as the smokers didn't venture into the halls, no one ever raised a fuss.

I doubt kids could get away with anything close to that today.

And later, when I went to university, smoking was allowed in the lecture halls and seminar rooms. You could say it was even encouraged, since several of the professors smoked.

In my early days in this business, smoking on the job was easy, because it was allowed in council chambers and school board meeting rooms. I covered the meetings of the Peel Board of Education (as it was called in those days), and remember the meeting in late 1985 when one of the trustees put forth a notice of motion to ban smoking in the board room.

"Those things never pass," my editor at the time told me, with a slightly dismissive tone in his voice.

It did pass, destroying my belief in the infallibility of editors. That belief was restored the day I became an editor.

The gradually dwindling areas where one could smoke was what really prompted me to try and quit, along with the fact it was becoming a strain on my wallet. As well, the information about the health implications, which seemed to be growing exponentially, was a factor.

One Sunday night, in January 1989, for no good reason, I decided to see how long I could go without a cigarette. The answer, somewhat to my astonishment, was about six months. But before you get too impressed, I should mention that I still smoked Colts (little cigars) in those days, so I hadn't really kicked the habit. Still, it was an accomplishment in my eyes, and in the eyes of some of those around me.

I eventually did quit altogether, sometime in the spring of 1994.

Although the cravings for tobacco have never completely gone away (I've sparked them up in a major way just by writing this piece about smoking), I have found them fairly easy to resist. Being the man that I am, I know I don't need the crutch of tobacco to get me through the day. Besides, my wife won't let me start again.

Since the spring of 1994, I have smoked exactly one cigar, bestowed upon me by the proud father of newborn twin boys a little more than four years ago (said father is probably reading this). The cigar was excellent, although I had to smoke it outside, while doing yard work (my wife wouldn't allow it in the house).

But the point is I, along with a lot of other people I know, have successfully quit smoking, and if we make it too expensive, a lot of young people will never start.

So yes, let's go after the illegal trade in smokes, but let's go after the legal trade too.

I'll bet even Runciman would go along with that.