Ban aims to curb tobacco addiction among students

­The Kativik School Board has stepped up its campaign against tobacco by banning smoking from school premises.

Commisioners hope the sight of young smokers puffing on discarded cigarette butts will soon be a hazy memory.

The school board resolved at its April 21 meeting to disallow smoking within all Nunavik schools and on school grounds.

But it’s up to staff to comply with the stricter regulation.

Opposition guaranteed

“There’s sure to be opposition,” Dr. Stephen Hodgins, Nunavik’s public health director predicted.

Nunavik’s Regional Health and Social Services Board has been smoke-free since 1996, though not without grumbling from employees and clients.

The health board considers tobacco-addiction prevention one of its main health priorities and is backing the concept of a smoke-free Nunavik “coalition.”

Smoking inside schools in northern Quebec has been prohibited for some time. But administrators found that puffers simply moved their habit outside building entrances.

There, young children often get their first taste of tobacco by picking through the mounds of cigarette ends.

Teachers sneak smokes

At the beginning of the past school year, Kuujjuaq’s Jaanimmarik School tried to clear out the smokers from around the front entrance. But students noticed that teachers were still smoking at the back door and went back to the front door again for their smokes.

Arnaittuq Ouellet, director of Salluit’s Ikusik School conceded the tighter tobacco restrictions could be difficult to enforce.

“It’s impossible to watch everyone all the time,” she said. “Maybe if we had a big tin can with a lid and fan, we could keep it with the smokers, and we could stop this completely.”

The school board resolution permits local education committees to designate a smoking area outside the school buildings.

Statistics show children in Nunavik begin smoking early in life. Sixteen per cent of all seven-year-olds are already hooked. More than two-thirds of 12-year-olds smoke.

Statistics also show that the risk of tobacco addiction decreases with age.

Emphasis on prevention

“If a young person in Nunavik manages to resist starting to smoke through to age 20, he or she is unlikely ever to start,” states literature produced by the Nunavik Smoking Action Plan.

“The biggest impact in working toward a smoke-free culture will be in helping young people resist starting.”

That’s why pregnant women, new mothers and health and education employees are prime candidates for smoking-cessation clinics, offered at health centres in Puvirnituq and Kuujjuaq.

These are the people who, according to the Smoking Action Plan, should be “positive role models” for Nunavik youth.

The Nunavik RHSSB hopes to work with the Kativik Regional Government and municipalities to crack down on smoking in all public places.

Old habits die hard

“You can’t make them do it, but it’s our job to put up health policies that benefit our young people,” says Elena Labranche, Health Promotion Agent for the Nunavik RHSSB.

The Nunavik public health department has drafted a model anti-smoking bylaw aimed at making all municipal buildings smoke-free. So far, few municipalities have adopted it.

A smoke-free Nunavik will take time, according to Hodgins.

“You don’t expect to go from where smoking is widespread to where there is not smoking at all,” he said.