The "Power Wall" Smoking Ban Has Failed

On Friday night, I took a quick trip to my local convenience store to buy the winning ticket for this week's Lotto Max draw. I think they gave me the wrong ticket, as it turns out, they sold mine to someone in Owen Sound. Oh well... maybe next time. While I was waiting in line I looked up at that blank wall behind the cashier, for behind that wall I knew were cigarettes. Now, I don't smoke and I never have but I think everyone knows what is behind there. They are called "Power Walls" and they are illegal in Ontario.

In may of 2008, the province of Ontario along with many other provinces banned the display of cigarettes in convenience stores. I'm going to show you a picture here, something as rare as a sighing of the Yeti, something which hasn't been seen in almost 6.5 years.. .something which is illegal:

 

There... I did it, let's see if I can write the rest of this article without being jailed.

So, as I'm standing there in line, I got to thinking... I wonder if the power wall ban has been effective in reducing smoking? If you are a regular reader of this blog or a listener to my podcast, you'll know what my immediate suspicions are... not at all... and I WAS RIGHT! A report out last year shows no change in the smoking trend of Ontarians.

The report was produced by the Propel Centre For Population Health Impact at the University of Waterloo and appeared on a number of websites. I found it at the website of the Manitoba Tobacco Reduction Alliance (If you'd like to read the whole report, click HERE.). In the report, appeared the following chart:

 

As you can see, the number of daily smokers has remained pretty steady, even after the power wall ban came into effect in 2008. Here is that chart in a different form:

For some reason there was a big up trend in 2012, I didn't look deep enough in the report to see if there might be a reason for this. Now, it appears that "Smoking Prevalence" (which basically includes occasional smokers as well) is down. However, the trend was going down even before convenience stores were forced to cover up:

Of course, I'm sure some will claim some sort of victory with this final stat claiming that numbers are down since 2008. Government jumps in front of a parade, then pretends to be leading the parade.

So in conclusion... what has happened? Lots of money was spent putting this plan in place and there has been no impact or reduction in smoking levels. The "out of sight, out of mind" mentality clearly has not worked here in Ontario. Let's let retailers again be allowed to display the products they have for sale.