No Butts on Display – Not a really a bad thing

I was reading a quick article in the Metro news this morning about a new law that is being ushered in soon by the Ontario government that will require convenience stores to no longer display any cigarette product until the person has ordered and paid for it. Apparently, thousands of the convenience store owners are already digging in and arguing that they won’t be ready to hide all their smokes by the deadline: May 31. I would say to all parties on the subject that the ban is a great idea and we should all think of it as an opportunity rather than a hindrance, on one side it helps to save lives and on the other side it may save people money!

Here are a few points to consider when we discuss restriction on access to cigarettes:

Health issues:

Critical illness insurance is one of the few insurance products that is becoming more expensive and restrictive with each passing year – there is a very strong reason for that. More and more people are getting sick and as payouts of policies become more frequent, the only way for the insure to ensure that they have the funds to pay for claims, is to charge more premium.

Hospital resources are becoming scarcer. We often hear people complaining about long wait times in the emergency rooms and hospitals lacking beds for their patients.

Cigarettes are not something we want to have our kids use, yet somehow – they do. Something is perpetuating this addiction – shouldn’t we take all measures possible to stop it?

Habits are hard to break:

When a habit is formed, it is a difficult thing to change. When a person is trying to break a habit, the last thing they need is to have that vice thrown in their face every time the go to get a pack of gum

Insurance relief:

Convenience stores that sell cigarettes are a position of higher risk than other stores. Their rates are higher and they will have to subject themselves to stricter guidelines for storing their product.

By removing the visible display of a known addictive substance, it takes that catalyst out of the mind of the potential thief, making it a harder product to lift/ burglarize etc.

This ban makes sense all around – yet for some reason it is being resisted. Shop owners complain that it will cost them money in sales – and that could be true. But in a year that every one is speaking the r-word (recession), I would think that everyone from the shop owner to the people smoking would want to buckle up and save the extra money that they have.

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