A Huron County student has been instrumental in the drive to ban flavoured cigarillos in Ontario.
Mandy Eveland was on hand in London last week as Health Promotion Minister Margarett Best announced that it is now illegal for stores to sell favoured cigarillos.
Eveland says she has been working for several years to get the candy-flavoured tobacco products out of the province’s stores.
Eveland says she was shocked by the way the products are marketed directly at teens and even pre-teens.
Eveland says youth are drawn to the flavours and packaging which she says are targeted at kids in high school and elementary school.
Eveland says many kids may not have realized what they were getting into by buying and consuming flavoured cigarillos.
She says children and teens are curious about the tobacco products and that it’s shocking the cigarillos were made so easily available to young people.
Eveland says she responded to a campaign that started elsewhere in Canada to get rid of flavoured cigarillos.
Eveland says when the drive spread to Ontario she was in the forefront of making teens aware of the dangers of flavoured cigarillos and the necessity of getting them off store shleves.
Eveland says she had a lot of backing in her campaign to eliminate flavoured cigarillos.
She says part-time and student staff at the Huron County Health Unit supported her as she spread the word to high school students of the dangers of flavoured cigarillos.
Even though the ban on flavoured cigarillos took effect on July 1st, unflavoured cigarillos can still be sold in packs of at least 20.
