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Mohawk reservation a soft spot for cigarette smuggling -ON, USA
By MICHAEL HILL | Associated Press Writer
November 23, 2007
AKWESASNE, Ontario - Mohawk police spotted a red van with swiped license plates riding through the reservation on a recent night looking like it was loaded down with something heavy.
It was.
After a brief pursuit, the officer pulled over a vehicle that smelled like a humidor. Garbage bags packed with more than a ton of golden cut tobacco filled the back from floor to ceiling.
Another night, another illegal load of tobacco headed to Canada from the United States through this Mohawk reservation. Akwesasne, which stretches into northern New York, is by far the busiest spot for cigarette smuggling along the northern border. While the U.S.-Canada border runs some 4,000 miles through mountains, plains and some of the largest freshwater lakes on the planet, the security challenges posed by Akwesasne are unique.
A bit smaller than the Bronx, the reservation straddles New York state, Quebec and Ontario and is sliced by the St. Lawrence River. Border crossers here pass through land controlled by four distinct governments: New York state, U.S.-side Mohawks, Canadian-side Mohawks and Ontario. This geopolitical complexity has helped make Akwesasne a go-to gateway for smugglers at least since Prohibition.
Right now, cigarette smuggling is big.
"They take advantage of the geography and the jurisdictional nightmare," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Michael Harvey.
Tobacco smuggling caught on after Canadian officials boosted cigarette taxes in 2001 to combat smoking. Criminals can sneak in their own cigarettes and retail them for as little as $10 a carton, compared to $80 or more for legal cartons. Mounties are seizing almost 17 times more tobacco than in 2001. Last year, they seized 472,000 cartons across Canada _ 90 percent originating from this Mohawk reservation.
Harvey said the tobacco is trucked north to the territory, where factories on the American side of the reservation, known as St. Regis, can pump out millions of cigarettes a year. Others simply smuggle bulk tobacco through the reservation, presumably to be made into cigarettes up north.
Sneaking the goods into Canada is a cat-and-mouse game. Smugglers zip across the river at night in low-profile duck boats with no lights to the Ontario portion of the reservation, which is an island. Then they can take a bridge to Cornwall, Ontario. Or they can boat a dozen miles down-river to any number of coves or marinas on the Canadian shore. In winter, they can drive trucks or snowmobiles over the ice.
Once in mainland Canada, it's an easy drive to Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto. The contraband cigarettes, often sold at "smoke shacks" on Indian land in Canada, look like any other, except without labels or boxes. They are packed parallel in clear plastic resealable bags.
Harvey said the Canadian-based organized crime groups behind tobacco smuggling will sometimes bring ecstasy or hockey bags full of marijuana back down to the United States. Still, it does not appear U.S. officials view Akwesasne as a comparable floodgate for illegal immigrants, drugs or money _ which are their primary U.S. northern border concerns.
U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Mark Henry said Akwesasne is a geographic challenge, but it is among several that agents focus on in their Northeast patrols. The Border Patrol does not keep seizure figures for Akwesasne. But the agency's Swanton sector _ which stretches 295 miles from northern New York to New Hampshire _ last year made 1,119 arrests for alien smuggling, a bit less than one in five of all such arrests along the northern border.
Chief Andrew Thomas of the St. Regis Tribal Police said smugglers exploit opportunities wherever they find them and the reservation's reputation as a "gateway" is unwarranted.
"That happens here, that happens points east, that happens points west," he said. "We seem to get all the attention."
Thomas has 16 officers to patrol the American side of the reservation, a flatland of woods, fields, modest houses and a bunch of gas stations that sell can sell tax-free fuel and cigarettes. Thomas said tobacco is "not a high priority with my agency." In his view, cigarette smuggling would disappear overnight if Canada would simply lower tobacco taxes.
"We have smuggling issues that my office focuses on, and that's the drug trade, weapons and illegal immigrants and illegal aliens," Thomas said. "Those are the real criminal issues that we deal with."
Law enforcement officials say Mohawk authorities on both sides of the border routinely cooperate in crackdown efforts, which are aggressive. Mounties have seized dozens of smugglers' pickup trucks and minivans (many with back seats removed to make room for more product ) this year alone. This summer, they teamed up with the U.S. Coast Guard to patrol the river under a pilot project called Shiprider.
On the U.S. side, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it has seized 16 tractor loads of tobacco headed to Akwesasne in the past 18 months.
But police actions involving Akwesasne can still be complicated by jurisdictional issues. Many Mohawks remain deeply connected to their land and sovereign heritage, a point of view summed up by a prominent banner hanging along the main highway here reading: "This is Mohawk Land Not NYS Land."
Consider that the St. Regis Tribal Council, the American-side government, lists six factories registered with the tribe to manufacture cigarettes, but there appears to only be one with federal approval. Art Resnick of the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau said a federal license is required for manufacturing tobacco products, even on Indian land.
The Mounties believe there are about a dozen unlicensed operations on the American side of Akwesasne and one gearing up on the Canadian side, Harvey said. Canadian officials are concerned that the cigarettes flow funds organized crime, cuts into tax revenue and exposes citizens to health risks.
But on recent rainy day as Harvey showed the sheltered inlets favored by smugglers, he stressed that is not just a Canadian problem.
"It doesn't matter what the commodity is," Harvey said. "We have to be concerned that the stuff is getting through."
On the Net:
Akwesasne: http://www.akwesasne.ca/
Mounties: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/
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Machine pumps out cigarettes
November 2, 2007
By JON WILLING, SUN MEDIA
Already fighting an uphill battle against black market cigarettes, police are concerned that a Canadian-made do-it-yourself machine could mass-produce smokes for organized criminals.
Sgt. Michael Harvey, based at the Central St. Lawrence Valley RCMP detachment in Cornwall, said it's "not far-fetched" that the machines could fuel the criminal underworld dealing in contraband smokes.
"This has just been brought to our attention," Harvey said of the technology.
Harvey's detachment has a massive workload busting contraband smugglers in Eastern Ontario and areas of Quebec. Now, a machine made in Montreal allows people to pump out thousands of individual cigarettes in a day.
On its website, Groupe Defis Inc. announces its first automated cigarette machine that can produce 50 smokes per minute -- almost one per second.
'START COMPANY'
According to the website, the cigarette machine can make the smokes from fresh tobacco leaves and even package the end products.
"The potential buyers of these machines become their own producers and salesmen of cigarettes," the website says. "They have great opportunities to start their own company."
Phillippe Thiry, the company's president, declined to talk about the product in detail yesterday, but he noted that the machine isn't entirely new since the company has been working on it for about a decade.
"We don't want to make too much publicity," Thiry said, although he mentioned that the machine is "very reliable." The company specializes in packing-type machinery.
Cops frequently arrest people transporting tobacco products that haven't been properly stamped according to federal laws.
Harvey noted that police have been involved in more investigations where people are transporting bulk tobacco into Canada illegally.
UNKNOWN CONTENTS
For police, the possible negative implications from the cigarette machine being on the market go beyond fuelling criminal activities.
Harvey said it's also dangerous from a health perspective. People don't know what's in their smokes if they're buying them from an independent and illegal seller, he said.
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Peel Police - Arrest Made in $1.2 Million Tobacco Theft -ON
November 1, 2007
The Brampton Guardian
Peel, ON – Working together, members of the Peel Regional Police Commercial Auto Crime Bureau, Canadian National Rail Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have made an arrest relating to the recent theft of four shipping containers loaded with raw tobacco.
On Friday, October 19th, 2007, it is alleged that the suspect made arrangements to have four truck loads of tobacco stolen from the C.N. shipping yard in Brampton, and taken to a trucking yard, also in Brampton, to be stored. Investigators believe that the suspect then removed three of the four loads from the trucking yard. Investigators were able to intervene, preventing the suspect from securing the fourth load.
Canadian National Rail Police and investigators from the Commercial Auto Crime Bureau shared information, and with the assistance of the R.C.M.P., identified the suspect. Members of the R.C.M.P. located the suspect in Montreal, and made the arrest on Wednesday, October 31, 2007.
Patrick QUINN, 38 years old of Montreal, is charged with four counts of Theft Over $5000.00 and was held for a Bail hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton on November 1, 2007.
None of the $1,200,000 worth of tobacco has been recovered and the investigation is being continued by all three Police Services.
If anyone has any information, they are asked to contact the Peel Regional Police Commercial Auto Crime Bureau at (905) 453-2121, ext. 3313, or Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
For additional information, please contact the on-duty Media Officer at 905-453-2121, Ext 4027.
Released by the Region of Peel Police on November 1, 2007 at 16:42
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RCMP make large seizure of contraband tobacco -NL
Last updated at 3:20 PM on 22/10/07
The Telegram
As a result of search warrant executed at a residence on Thorburn Road in St. John's, the RCMP Customs and Excise investigators, in partnership with St. John's RCMP Drug Section, seized 51 cases of contraband cigarettes from a residence early Saturday
Each case contains about 50 bags of cigarettes and each bag contains about 200 cigarettes.
The total seizure equals about half million cigarettes with an estimated street value of $87,500 — the retail value estimated at nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
A 40-year-old man, Dean Martin, was taken into custody and charged with offences under the Provincial Tobacco Tax Act, The Federal Excise Act 2001 and the Controlled Drug and Substances Act.
He appeared in provincial court in St. John’s Saturday and will appear in court again at a later date.
This is the biggest seizure of contraband cigarettes made by Royal Canadian Mounted Police in this province to date.
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Caledonia man peddles from truck -ON
October 22, 2007
Dana Borcea The Hamilton Spectator (Oct 22, 2007)
Selling contraband cigarettes to counter 'illegal' native smoke shops
A Caledonia resident is selling contraband cigarettes from the back of his truck to protest the recent opening of two native smoke shops on Highway 6 that he describes as illegal.
On Saturday morning Doug Fleming set up his own makeshift smoke shop on a lot next to the former Douglas Creek development occupied by Six Nations protesters last year. He then drove his pickup down Argyle Street to the Caledonia OPP office and set up shop in their parking lot. Fleming said that after a couple of hours he was asked to leave by an OPP officer who told him the plaza owner had complained he was trespassing.
He was not charged.
"I'm challenging the OPP to deal with me but they won't because if they deal with me, they'll have to deal with the Indians," said the 45-year-old swimming pool installer. "I'm openly breaking the law."
Fleming said that when the two shops recently sprung up on Highway 6 around 5th Line he went to officials at Haldimand County to complain.
He said they are on land that belongs to the Six Nations Band Council. But he added that since it is not reserve land it is under Haldimand County's jurisdiction and should be subject to the county's rules. He was told by officials the land was "in limbo."
He wants the shops shut down so others are not encouraged to set up on the high-traffic route. He also wants to see local laws enforced.
Fleming first set up his rolling protest the weekend before and is considering making it a weekly event.
"I think I'm going to set up shop every Saturday until they enforce the law and close down the shops," he said. "We've been living with laws being broken and police not enforcing them for long enough."
Haldimand Mayor Marie Trainer agreed the smoke shops are in violation of several laws.
She said the owners have put up signs on Highway 6 despite not being allowed to advertise the sale of tobacco or post signs on provincial highways. They are also not allowed to build driveways into their lots given a law that prohibits the construction of any more entrances onto the already busy stretch of highway.
"Every rule has been broken," she said.
Haldimand council met last week to discuss the issue, but Trainer said she could not reveal the details of the in-camera meeting.
OPP spokesperson Dave Rektor said the matter was still under investigation but described any provocation by citizens as "unhelpful."
A band council spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
The owner of The Hawk Shop, one of two smoke shacks on the stretch of Highway 6, said he first opened up around six months ago. Jeff Hawk, who is not paying to operate his business on the land, said he is not under Haldimand jurisdiction or accountable to the band council.
"I have not heard from (the band) directly but I have heard they want me out," he said.
He said the parcel of land belongs to the Six Nations community and that he has no intention of leaving.
"I can't trespass on my own land," he said. "I'm not doing anything wrong."
Hawk added he is willing to share the profits from his sale of the cheap cigarettes with the Six Nations community.
Hawk's previous shack on the same land was shot at a few months ago. His former business partner was injured in the shooting. Another shack of his was burned to the ground during the summer in a suspicious fire.
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Chase ends with arrest of smuggling suspect -ON
Mon, October 15, 2007
By JON WILLING, Sun Media
A police pursuit sparked by a contraband smokes investigation this morning ended with the fleeing vehicle striking a post in Cornwall.
OPP noticed a potential cigarette smuggler travelling eastbound on Hwy. 401 near Lancaster around 7 a.m.
Officers watched as items were tossed outside the vehicle, which failed to stop for police. Police say speeds reached 155 km/h before the vehicle entered Cornwall and the pursuit was called off.
Cornwall police apprehended at least one man after the vehicle hit a post and the suspect fled on foot.
Charges are pending against a 37-year-old Akwesasne man.
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Smoking market
Mon Aug 20 2007
WHAT Canadian smoker, given the opportunity to save $40 on a batch of 200 cigarettes by buying contraband tobacco instead of government-approved tobacco, would not take advantage of it?
Well, the honest ones would not, you might say, but every honest Canadian, smoker or not, knows that the taxes on tobacco are punitive for smokers and grossly profit-rich for governments because of that. People will avoid such taxes when they can.
The argument in favour of taxing tobacco exorbitantly is that it discourages people from smoking cigarettes. And smoking has now declined to what is probably the hard core of Canadian puffers, but that is more likely to be due to education than it is to high prices. People who want or need to smoke will simply divert the money from some other pleasure or necessity as the price of the habit rises.
Or they will turn to the black market, as an increasing number of them appear to be doing. According to a recent industry report, three out of every 10 cigarettes sold in Ontario and Quebec are contraband, smuggled mostly through Mohawk reserves along the United States border.
When this problem became acute in the 1990s, the governments of Ontario and Quebec drastically cut their taxes on tobacco. This led to a drop in the level of smuggling, but not to a dramatic rise in the number of smokers, which gives credence to the idea that it is education, rather than cost, that is effective.
Today, police say that smuggling of cigarettes is greater than it was in the 1990s, possibly by as much as 10 per cent or more. The government's solution today is to commission a high-tech seal that will give an official stamp of approval to legal cigarettes so that those smokers who may care can be sure they are not buying contraband. The nation can breathe a little easier.
This smuggling, however, brings with it other problems. Where in the 1990s smuggling tobacco was mostly a Mohawk cottage industry, today it involves biker gangs and the Mafia. According to the RCMP, the same smuggling routes that channel tobacco and the profits from that are used to facilitate and finance the traffic in guns and illegal drugs.
Canadians find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Cutting taxes on tobacco would, as it did in the 1990s, reduce smuggling, but anti-smoking groups argue that it would also increase consumption. That may or may not be so, but we truly do not know what the balance here is. Is the health cost of a slight increase in the rate of smoking greater or lesser than the social cost of the immense profits that go to organized crime and the related criminal activity that inspires? Until the government can tell us that, we can have no confidence that it knows what it is doing with this perennial problem.
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Anti-smoking lobby has failed
Published: Saturday, August 18, 2007
National Post
Re: Ottawa To Mark Tobacco, Tom Blackwell, Aug. 14.
Aren't we getting just a little silly about this whole thing -- giving cigarettes the same value we give money? Next thing you know, cigarettes will have to be transported around in armoured cars and smokers will need a PIN number to purchase them.
The anti-smoking groups never seem to get the message. High taxes will always lead to smuggling, no matter how valid the reason for the tax. True, lowering taxes may encourage young people to take up smoking, but it's debatable just how much high taxes have actually discouraged young people from smoking.
The bloom has long since gone off the rose for the anti-smoking lobby. It all seemed so simple at one time, even laudable. All they had to do was inform the public about the perils of smoking and people would swear off the demon weed in droves. Now here we are, 20 or 30 years later, dealing with smuggling for the second time in 10 years, and with a significant portion of the population still smoking. It's time for the anti-smoking zealots to admit that they have lost the struggle and bring an end to the madness.
Roy Weston, Burnaby, B.C
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Ottawa to mark tobacco
Published: Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Tom Blackwell, National Post
Security stamps on packs meant to deter contraband
The federal government is ordering high-security tax stamps for cigarette packages and planning stepped-up audits of tobacco factories and farms in a new campaign against the increasing number of contraband cigarettes flooding the Canadian market.
The stamps, to include holograms or other features typically used on paper money, are designed to prevent counterfeiting, and experts say they could help ensure tax-free cigarettes meant for First Nations communities are not sold to outsiders.
The initiative comes as police, industry and anti-smoking advocates warn of a rampant black market in tobacco, which has made unlikely allies of groups normally at each others' throats. The underground products -- mostly coming from native reserves in the United States or Ontario -- rob the legitimate industry and government of revenue, shrink the high prices that are considered a key deterrent to potential smokers and allegedly fuel organized crime.
According to a recent industry report, close to one in three cigarettes bought in Ontario and Quebec are illicit, while police say more cigarettes are being slipped into Canada now through eastern Ontario's Akwesasne Mohawk reserve than during the smuggling heydays of the 1990s.
"The contraband problem is extremely serious, requiring urgent government action," said Rob Cunningham of the Canadian Cancer Society.
"Failure to take effective action now will mean the problem will get even worse ... Higher tobacco taxes are one of the most effective strategies to reduce smoking, especially among teenagers who are more price-sensitive.
"The availability of low-price cigarettes, because of contraband, undermines the effectiveness of that strategy."
Cigarette manufacturers supplying the Canadian market are supposed to be licensed and pay tobacco taxes to both the federal and provincial governments.
According to a survey of smokers commissioned by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council released last month, however, 22% of cigarettes sold in this country were illicitly tax free, up from 16.5% a year earlier. Ontario and Quebec had the worst problems, with contraband tobacco making up more than 30% of sales in each province, the industry study suggests.
Black-market consumers save as much as $40 in tax on 200 cigarettes.
In response, the Canada Revenue Agency has just issued a tender calling for a contractor to produce tax stamps for cigarette packages that include anti-counterfeit features such as holograms and lines of "microprint."
The idea flows from a study by the revenue agency and Ministry of Finance that identified ways to combat the contraband problem, said the agency documents.
The tax office has also been ordered to increase auditing of tobacco manufacturers and more closely monitor the leaf tobacco growers who supply both legitimate and illegal factories, the material says.
The Canada Revenue Agency failed to respond to repeated requests for more information about the measures.
The Cancer Society's Mr. Cunningham said there are four main sources of illegitimate cigarettes. They include factories on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve near Cornwall, Ont., as well as plants on three other Mohawk reserves in Ontario and Quebec.
Experts agree the main problem is the flow of black-market tobacco from the United States, across the St. Lawrence River at Akwesasne and into Canada.
Seizures by police indicate the volume of contraband cigarettes entering the country now is 10% higher than it was in the mid-1990s, said Sergeant Mike Harvey of the RCMP's Cornwall detachment. A decade ago, the problem triggered gunfights and other violence, prompting the town's mayor to compare his community to Dodge City.
Back then, the smugglers allegedly bought cigarettes made south of the border by major Canadian manufacturers, one of which faces trial on charges of defrauding the government of more than $1-billion in tax and duty.
Now, the suppliers are smaller factories on the American side of the reserve that make generic products, often sold in unmarked baggies of 200 cigarettes. While the levels of violence are not as dramatic as in the mid-'90s, organized crime groups including the Mafia and outlaw bikers are involved this time, Sgt. Harvey said.
The proceeds from tobacco sales are often used to buy marijuana and Ecstasy in Canada, which is then smuggled back to the United States, he said. The groups sometimes spirit guns from the U.S. back here, police believe.
"The general public don't get the big picture," Sgt. Harvey said. "They think they're sticking it to the tax man when in fact they are affecting their communities, because they're financing these other illicit activities."
As for the factories on the Canadian side of the border, they are supposed to sell cigarettes tax-free only to Aboriginal people with Indian status. Many are diverted into the general market, however.
The higher-security tax stamps will help ensure that over-production by those plants does not get sold without tax to non-natives, said Mr. Cunningham. He also urged the federal government to pressure American officials to close the U.S. plants and recommended outlawing the sale of cigarette supplies -- such as leaf tobacco, paper and filters -- to illegal plants.
Manufacturers catering to native communities should also have to pay taxes up front, with retailers getting rebates when they sell to Aboriginal customers, said the Cancer Society official.
Karen Bodirsky of Rothmans, Benson and Hedges Inc. said her industry would welcome more aggressive audits of the small factories in aboriginal communities.
"This is an extremely regulated industry," she said. "To see that there is a portion of the marketplace that involves manufacturers that, frankly, are not observing the law is problematic. Either there is a law and you enforce it, or there is no law."
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Contraband cigarettes becoming a national norm
May 1, 2007.
No question, I was slightly nervous. After all, I was about to commit a criminal act. “Got any cheap smokes?” I asked a scruffy guy sitting in a grungy coffee shop on Toronto’s Queen Street. I approached him after watching him brazenly counting a large wad of cash in a place that seemed filled with lost and desperate souls.
“How much do you want,” he asked, nonchalantly.
“One pack.”
“Three bucks,” he said, a bit more than a third of what a pack of 20 cigarettes would have cost me in a store. He fished the untaxed contraband out of an inside pocket in his dirty raincoat.
The entire brief transaction was conducted in plain view of the coffee shop staff and about 20 customers. Neither the buyer nor I made any effort to camouflage what we were doing.
Called DK’s, the cellophane wrapped red package had “Manufactured by King Enterprises, LLC Akwesasne Mohawk Territory” embossed on one side and a health warning from the US Surgeon General on the other.
King Enterprises, located on the US side of the Akwesasne Reserve (which straddles Ontario, Quebec and New York state), is licensed by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council to sell cigarettes in the US domestic market only. Its license specifically states “exclusive of Canada.”
Although cheaper than a latte at Starbucks, my deal was no bargain compared with the one Cynthia Callard, the executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, obtained on a recent trip to the Tyendinaga Reserve, near Belleville, Ont. “We bought 200 cigarettes [the equivalent of 10 small packages], in a plastic baggie, for $8, as opposed to about $80 in a store.”
It’s clearly become extremely easy to buy contraband tobacco on the streets of Canada’s major cities. The coffee shop where I shopped was just 4 blocks from the Eaton Centre, in an area known for drugs and prostitution. I was directed to the dealer by way of a simple inquiry on the street.
There’s also no doubt it’s become a nation-wide phenomenon. RCMP customs and excise unit Sargeant Jim Power says contraband tobacco sales have surged in Newfoundland and Labrador. In November 2005, an extensive police operation dismantled a sizable cigarette contraband ring operating mainly in Quebec and Western Canada. Large quantities of tobacco and manufacturing equipment were seized during 80 raids that took place in Vancouver, Calgary, Hamilton, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières and Montréal. A 2006 study by Imperial Tobacco — Tobacco Product Illicit Trade Phenomena — found that approximately 1 in 4 cigarettes smoked in Ontario and Quebec were illegal.
In late April (at press deadline), a coalition of 70 organizations launched a campaign to convince various levels of government to implement a crackdown on contraband tobacco, including stiff measures designed to curb the production and sale of cheap cigarettes on native reserves ( http://www.cmaj.ca/ cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.070609v1).
Inexpensive cigarettes can be readily obtained by all and sundry on First Nations’ territory, although, lawfully, only residents of the reserve and status Indians are entitled to purchase them. Occasionally, cigarettes available on reserves are professionally packaged and contain standard health warnings. But usually they come in clear plastic bags.
“Since 2001, we have seen a 1700% increase in the number of tobacco products the RCMP has seized,” says Superintendent Joe Oliver, director of the RCMP’s customs and excise program, who’s been investigating smuggling since the early 90s. “In 2001, we seized around 29 000 cartons. Last year, we seized 502 000.”
Although law enforcement agencies are primarily concerned about tobacco smuggling from a criminal perspective, particularly the involvement of organized crime, they’re also concerned about the potential health impacts from access to inexpensive cigarettes, says Power.
Yet, whether contraband cigarettes might be more dangerous, because of the potential inclusion of unknown substances (Box 1), is almost a non sequitur to the experts. Smoking any kind of cigarettes, contraband or otherwise, is hazardous, Callard says. Nonsmokers Rights Association Di-rector of Policy Francis Thompson concurs. “There can be about 4000 ingredients in cigarettes. There is a requirement that you report what they are if you’re operating legally, but the list of ingredients is only semi-public. There’s no evidence that the contraband product is any more dangerous.”
Both argue a greater concern rests with the potential effect that cheap and easy-to-obtain cigarettes will have on smoking rates, especially among youths and the First Nations population (Fig. 1).
“I think [contraband cigarettes] do pose an additional health risk because they’re cheaper,” says Callard. “The more you smoke, the more smoke you inhale into your lungs. Also, the cheaper cigarettes are, the less likely you are to stop smoking.”
Illicit cigarettes are also more easily obtained by underage smokers. Last year, Toronto inspectors laid 264 charges against retail stores for selling to minors, more than 4 times the number in 2003. About a third of those charges involved illegal cigarettes, says Rob Colvin, manager of healthy environments with Toronto Public Health.
Politics invariably enters the contraband tobacco debate when attention shifts to the involvement of some First Nations communities. Oliver says the “vast majority of product seized across Canada” came from the US side of the Akwesasne Reserve. The Imperial Tobacco study, meanwhile, estimated that 95% of Canada’s illicit tobacco trade originates on reserves, while Thompson notes that Grand River Enterprises, a legal enterprise located on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ont., is now Canada’s third largest tobacco company. Annual sales at the reserve have been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Six Nations declined comment.
Smoking rates among Aboriginal peoples are “more than double the rate for the rest of Canada,” according to a 2006 report by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). “First Nations girls between 15-17 years old have a smoking rate of 61% — 4 times the national smoking rate of girls in the same age range. First Nations boys between 15-17 years old have a smoking rate of 47%, compared with the national rate of 13% for boys in the same age range. Perhaps more disturbing, almost 60% of pregnant First Nations women smoke.
Reducing smoking rates within the First Nations communities is no simple task, particularly in light of larger social problems like poverty, alcohol abuse and staggering unemployment rates, says Dr. Valerie Gideon, senior director of the AFN’s Health and Social Directorate. She also cautions anti-smoking advocates from jumping to conclusions about the potential correlation between high smoking rates and the sporadic absence of health warning labels on native- manufactured packages. “The evidence is still unconvincing that actually links warning levels with reduction of smoking. And within our populations, there are language issues, literacy issues and other factors to take into account.”
Among those factors is the role of tobacco within the First Nations culture, Gordon says. “This is a dimension to the issue that is not part of mainstream Canada and needs to be understood. We can’t just come out with a message that tobacco is bad for you because we have elders who use it in ceremonies. We offer it to elders. So you have to be far more culturally sensitive and appropriate in the messaging.”
With Health Canada having projected a reduction in smoking rates — to about 20% of the population in 2005 from 25% in 2001 — the contraband issue isn’t always seen as a major concern and political considerations become a factor, Callard says. “People don’t want to touch native issues. We erected a smoke shack right outside the PM’s office and normally a stunt like that would get a lot of [media] attention, but no, nothing.”
There appears to be some international movement, however. Oliver notes the world’s first health treaty, called the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, “has an article dedicated to eliminating the illicit trade of tobacco, and about 145 countries have ratified it so far.”
But more must be done to address health concerns, Oliver adds. “The people who supply the product are only in it because of greed. They don’t care that they’re making cigarettes more easily obtainable by young people, and that’s just not right.” — Paul McLaughlin, Toronto
CMAJ • May 22, 2007 • 176(11) | 1567
Read article to see:
photo of a bag of cigarettes with byline: "Plastic baggies of 200 cigarettes, often without health warnings, can be purchased in most major cities for as little as $8-$10".
Box 1: Top 6 toxins in tobacco products, as identified by Health Canada
Cigarettes siezed in Upper Ottawa Valley -ON
May 15, 2007
Ottawa Citizen
After a seven-month investigation, police have seized $35,000 of contraband cigarettes in Pembroke and Petawawa.
A three-way partnernship between the OPP's Upper Ottawa Valley detachment, Pembroke city police and the province's ministry of finance resulted in the discovery of unmarked cigarettes.
Police have charged Paul Landry, 43, of Pembroke with possession and intention to sell contraband cigarettes. Mr. Landry will appear in court on June 11.
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Tim Hortons fender-bender rolls up $85,000 worth of contraband smokes and drugs -NL
CanWest News Service
May 08, 2007
A vacationing couple may be spending more time in western Newfoundland than they bargained for after a routine fenderbender turned up contraband cigarettes and illegal drugs. The couple's vehicle struck another car in the parking lot of a Tim Hortons southeast of Gros Morne National Park. The driver of the other car called police, who quickly spotted the illegal cigarettes and arrested the pair. That is when the driver coughed up the location of more contraband smokes in the trunk of the car. When police looked inside, they found first the marijuana and then about a half-kilogram of cocaine hidden in a stereo speaker. The drugs have a street value of about $85,000. The unidentified couple, who are from outside Newfoundland and Labrador, will be back in court on June 12.
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Smugglers in cross hairs -ON
Elisabeth Johns / Standard-Freeholder
May 07, 2007
As local police forces seize more contraband cigarettes on a weekly basis in this region, the Ontario government has implemented additional penalties and punitive measures to stop cigarette smuggling, the Health Promotions Minister said.
"We've stepped up the penalties and enforcement," said Jim Watson as the RCMP put out two more press releases of major contraband cigarette busts.
However, Watson contended the provincial government needs Canada's aid to disrupt the illegal smoke trade, as well as they need more co-operation of First Nations governments.
Although in recent months, the Akwesasne Mohawk Police have been laying charges under the Indian Act for trespassing on native territory to anyone caught smuggling cigarettes on the reserve.
"Cheap and illegal tobacco are the driving reasons behind why young people start to smoke," Watson warned.
Many critics will suggest if the province were to reduce the taxes on legal cigarettes, the illegal trade would be driven down.
Watson rebutted this notion, saying that it's simply a myth the government makes a profit on tobacco sales.
While Ontario receives $1.3 billion a year in tobacco tax, this money goes directly to health care costs of people who have smoking-related diseases, Watson said. "It costs $1.7 billion to treat people .
. . that's a $400 million expense."
"The notion that this is a money grab for the province . . . it just doesn't jive with the facts," he replied.
RCMP Sgt. Michael Harvey said that while cops don't lay charges under the provincial act (the RCMP lays charges under the Federal Excise Act), he believes the provincial fines are often more successful.
Many of the people charged with cigarette smuggling in this area often live in Ontario and when they are charged under the Tobacco Tax Act, Harvey explained, convicted persons often find their drivers' licence suspended or lose their health benefits if they don't pay off the fines.
"The federal act is more difficult (to get something like this done). . . licence renewal programs are provincial and not federal," Harvey said.
Harvey, who either helps to seize tobacco along with other RCMP officers, or disseminates the information to the media, said the Tobacco Tax Act helps to "tackle the problem of the contraband tobacco once it reaches its destinations within Ontario and away from the (U.S.) border."
"The fines from this act will certainly help deal with the tax dollars lost in sales due to the black market trade of contraband cigarettes," Harvey said. "So the stiffer penalties will help the province make up some of the tax dollars that are not paid and also deter the smuggler once caught as these fines will certainly be enforced and garnished from that individual if found guilty."
Just this past week, the RCMP busted two cigarette smuggling runs.
On May 1, a Canada Border Services Agency officer noticed what he believed was a suspicious truck travel off Cornwall Island.
He followed the truck to Third Street, where he was joined by an RCMP officer. They allegedly saw the pickup truck driver unload cases of contraband cigarettes in a rental van. When the RCMP officer approached the vehicles, two men fled on foot.
The driver of the passenger van, a 25-year-old Nepean man, was captured and placed under arrest.
He was later released.
He could face charges for possession of a tobacco product that was not properly stamped under the federal Excise Act.
The pickup truck driver was not located, however police are still investigating this incident.
In a separate case police seized 300,000 contraband cigarettes, which were worth about $33,000. Police say there were many people involved in this attempt to distribute illegal cigarettes and warn citizens from purchasing contraband tobacco.
On May 2, police from several different agencies arrested four men and one woman throughout the evening, seized three vehicles and 599,400 contraband cigarettes. The total value of these seizures, including the vehicles is $88,934.
During their first investigation, police stopped a pickup truck on Highway 20 near Les Cedres, Que., and found the truck was loaded with 1,150 re-sealable bags of Light Flavour cigarettes.
The driver, a 37-year-old Cornwall man, and the passenger, an 18-year-old Cornwall man, were arrested by the Quebec Provincial Police and face charges under the Tobacco Tax Act. The passenger is also charged with personation with intent.
During a second investigation, police followed a van driving from Cornwall.
The Quebec provincial police stopped the van as it was driving, again, near Les Cedres, Que., and found 597 cartons of Native Lights brand cigarettes.
The driver, a 48-year-old Cornwall woman and passenger, a 36-year-old Cornwall man, faces charges under the Tobacco Tax Act and the Excise Act.
In the last operation, police stopped a pickup truck driving along Highway 540 near Vaudreuil-Doiron, Que., and seized 1,250 re-sealable bags of cigarettes and cartons from the vehicle.
The driver, a 47-year-old Cornwall man was arrested and faces charges under the Excise Act and the Tobacco Tax Act. ejohns@standard-freeholder.com
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