New Provincial Legislation has just come into effect banning the sale of the so called kiddie packs of tobacco products.
Allan Hawes — a Tobacco enforcement officer with the Grey Bruce Health Unit — says retail sale of little cigars, also known as cigarillos, and blunt wraps packaged in less than 20 units are no longer permitted.
He says the blunt wraps are available in a wide range of flavours and sold singly or in small quantity kiddie-packs for as little as a dollar each.
Hawes says the tobacco industry is adding candy flavours to these products to attract youth to smoking.
He says little cigars are the fastest growing tobacco product on the market. National sales jumped from 53 million units in 2001 to 469 million units in 2008 with children and youth the primary market for these products.
Legislation ban the sale of flavoured tobacco products will come into effect in July of this year.
Hawes also says the sale of illegal tobacco products continues to be a huge problem in Grey Bruce, and studies show these contraband cigarettes contain such contaminants as shards of glass and even feces.
He says while the majority of corner store operators don’t sell to underage teens, there are still some out there who ignore the law.
Hawes says the Health Unit uses under age secret shoppers to see how many stores are complying with the legislation.
He says figures from last year show that compliance rates were down considerably from the year before and Health Unit officials are not really sure of the reason for that.