{"id":107001,"date":"2017-11-30T13:45:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T18:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/?p=107001"},"modified":"2017-11-30T13:56:52","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T18:56:52","slug":"two-years-after-the-passage-of-tougher-smoking-laws-in-quebec-its-business-as-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/two-years-after-the-passage-of-tougher-smoking-laws-in-quebec-its-business-as-usual\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Years After The Passage Of Tougher Smoking Laws in Quebec, It’s Business As Usual"},"content":{"rendered":"

If one of the main goals of the tobacco Act review in 2015 was to reduce smoking, then we can conclude that two years later, it hasn’t been a huge success.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as this week marks the second anniversary of the passage of Bill 44, the most recent statistics from the Quebec Finance Department contained in the 2016-2017 Public Accounts<\/a>\u00a0report unveiled this month confirm that tax revenues on tobacco remained stable over the past year.<\/p>\n

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Despite the ban on menthol and flavors, as well as smoking in restaurant terraces, parks and the like, tobacco sales remained very stable two years after these measures came into effect (the above columns show tobacco tax revenues stemming from real sales). Note: The orange columns represent years during which the tobacco tax was increased (PTT = Provincial Tobacco Tax).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although 2017 is the first full year under the new revised law, sales were down only 3.5%, or $ 38 million, from the previous year, and just 2.2%, or 24 million, compared to 2015.<\/p>\n

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When comparing tobacco tax revenues with cigarettes sales in Quebec as reported by another source, i.e. the Federal government<\/a> (on the right column), we can see that while volume increases seem to be over, there are no sharp declines either but a steady flow of income.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moreover, this small decrease of 3.5% in legal tobacco sales could be very well caused by an increase in contraband.<\/p>\n

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To better understand tobacco sale trends, one must look at legal and illegal tobacco altogether. Thus, assuming that the overall market could generate $ 1,200 million of tax revenue per year in Quebec (according to government’s data suggesting that contraband is about 15% of the market), we see that legal tobacco increases depend mostly contraband’s degree of repression and not on a hypothetical variation of demand in general.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are reasons to suspect that contraband is behind the recent tiny drop in legal sales and NOT the reduction in smoking.<\/p>\n

Indeed, just in recent weeks, a series of spectacular arrests and seizures have come to recall the illicit market incredible resilience:<\/p>\n