Nearly half of Nunavik secondary school students smoke cigarettes: Study
Health board representatives believe habit is transferred to youths at young age
A Quebec Statistics Institute report shows 43 per cent of secondary school students in Nunavik are cigarette smokers. (File photo)
A new study finds that nearly half of Nunavik secondary school students are cigarette smokers.
A report released in March by Quebec’s Statistics Institute, called Uvikkavut Qanuippat, found smoking rates of 43 per cent among this group, with one-third having used electronic cigarettes. The survey was conducted in 2022.
Regular smokers make up 34 per cent of the group, while nine per cent are considered “beginner smokers,” meaning they’ve smoked between one and 99 cigarettes within 30 days of taking the survey.
The habit is being passed down from adults, said Victoria Grey, a tobacco prevention officer with Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.
Around 80 per cent of Nunavimmiut smoke cigarettes, she said.
“I have talked with parents who have gone through so much in life,” Grey said in an interview. “They were abused, and tobacco smoke is the best friend they have.”
She said she believes youth absorb stress generated by parents and elders, causing them stress and leading to cigarette smoking.
“This high rate is not going any lower,” said Grey.
Smoking is normalized in Nunavik, said Alain Ishac, team leader with the tobacco prevention department.
“It is normal to smoke when everyone smokes around you,” he said, adding smoking is also a social addiction.
Ishac said some Nunavik youths begin smoking as young as six years old.
“The younger you become a smoker, the more difficult it becomes to quit smoking in the future,” he said.
Ishac said he considers vaping electronic cigarettes to be even more addictive than regular cigarettes, because the nicotine concentration in vapes is often higher and gets into the brain even after a few puffs.
Ishac’s and Grey’s work is to inform, teach and offer smoking cessation services in health centres across the region.
Grey travels across the Arctic region to talk about the harmful effects of tobacco.
“We cannot give up, we have to keep mentioning the harms, and the cancer that it causes, the reality of being a smoker all your life,” she said, using the story of her husband, a heavy smoker who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer, as an example of what smoking can lead to.
“I even told my husband, if you pass away from your cancer I will say that you died from cigarette smoking,” she said.
“I am very affected, because this is right in my family. That is why I tend to teach today why somebody dies from smoking so much all their life.”
I see kid looking for cigarette buds under step , so they can smoke them , sad.
Another important article from this journalist.
As a qallunaat who works in the region running a basketball program and developing community sports , this is an issue that is incredibly tough to take on because it is so normalized that many Inuit youth don’t grasp the realities of how harmful it is, and how financially costly it will be to get addicted to them.
I actually spoke to my boss who is an Inuk about the issue of cigarette usage in Nunavik , and he explained to me that when he was a younger man away at a hockey tournament in Montreal that Inuit youth on his team of 15 and 16 year olds were shocked by the fact that every southerner entering the arena was so shocked by the prominent cigarette usage amongst his teammates, who were all out having a smoke between periods in front of the arena….because they hadn’t realized before coming south how the education campaigns and advertising campaigns against tobacco usage were working and usage was falling in the south.
We had a good laugh thinking about the scenario, but it really brought home what the word “normalize” means in the context.
When 8 out of 10 people around you are smoking, it is just what people do.
It seems to me that the tobacco industry itself should be called out and footing the bill for the campaign to fight against what is playing out in Nunavik….but Im also very glad that this article explains the stresses involved in the lives of Inuit who follow the smoking path.
This article actually has me thinking that the developing youth sports programs in Nunavik will have to play an increasingly large role in explaining to our younger athletes to not start, and why, and continue to let our older athletes know that they have a responsibility to not pass down bad habits to the younger athletes, and to never pass anyone their first cigarette. We already stress that, but we can certainly go a lot further encouraging quitting….and my mind is currently churning on thoughts on how to do that.
Maybe an advertising campaign by prominent Inuit entertainers could help, if they were willing.
This is not one of those fights you can give up on….
Thanks for the article.
Based on the comments made by the nicotine-addiction counsellors, a good improvement for the Nunavik smoking-cessation program would be to get new counsellors and to get new people who hire counsellors
Good behavior and habits start with parents acting as role models. Not many of them around here with tobacco and other addictions.
Laser therapy gold mine nunamii🤑🪄
Why do a study on this when we cannot even save our own youth from letting them buy street drugs and vapes that are more dangerous!!?? Adults who sell drugs/vapes to underage youth are not being monitored and are not being checked at the post offices! Wasting time and money on this…………..
When I was in high school it was a lot higher than that
look towards NU Quits smoking campaign, thats been such a great investment and great outcomes! honestly I wonder why it’s still on going because I have never known a more successful campaign.
Quitting cigarettes is hard. Quitting and starting over again is probable, do not be discouraged.