Teenagers have no problem getting tobacco

To mark No-Tobacco Day on Monday, Kelsey Chudiak and Megan Sequeira spent their lunch hour eating veggie-filled wraps in a cafe across from Western Canada High School.

"I'd never smoke, it's not healthy," says Kelsey, a 17-year-old aspiring medical student and ringette player. "Western Canada is a sports-oriented school, so I think there are way fewer smokers here than at some other high schools."

Megan, a 16-year-old soccer player, agrees.

"Smoking isn't cool, and hardly anyone we know smokes," she says of her school of 1,200 students. "The percentage of smokers here is very, very small."

To be fair to the athletic duo, they weren't aware it was World No-Tobacco Day. But they do know where I'll find the school's smokers.

"Just go behind the school grounds past the Dumpster," says Megan. "The rest of us don't go there, but that's where they huddle."

Around the back, their fellow students tell a different story.

"Just about everyone at this school smokes," claims Sally, an 18-year-old Western Canada High student who'll talk only if I don't use her last name.

"Just look at all of them," she says as she points to scores of students heading back to the school from behind the huge trash bin.

Though the estimates of smoking rates differ wildly between the smokers and non-smokers at this popular inner-city high school, all agree on one thing: if you do want to light up, being under 18 is no detriment.

"I just turned 18, and I've been smoking for years," says Sally as a group of nearby boys puffs away. "You can always find someone willing to sell to you -- I always pick the convenience stores where the cashier is close to my age."

According to a newly released Health Canada report, it's easier than ever for teens to purchase cigarettes -- especially if you live in Alberta. Tobacco sales to minors have increased for the past three consecutive years, with 17 per cent of retailers willing to sell to underage test shoppers in 2009, nearly double the 2006 figure. When it comes to selling to those just shy of 18, Alberta is second in the country only to Nova Scotia.

Such findings hardly surprise Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, Western Canada's leading tobacco control organization.

"Considering we have no provincial regulation," says Hagen, who notes that every other province in the country has its own rules, and enforcement, on retail sales of tobacco, "we're in fact inviting the problem."

According to Hagen, Alberta has shirked its responsibility in this area.

"We rely entirely on the federal government for this," he says. "When does Alberta rely entirely on the federal government for anything?"

Hagen says it's a simple matter of tweaking the province's Tobacco Reduction Act, which came into force in 2008, and that bans the sale of tobacco products from all health-care facilities, post-secondary campuses and pharmacies. He'd like to see provincial rules, and enforcement, of tobacco sales at the retail level, and a crackdown on the growing number of violators.

Even with tighter enforcement, say kids like 15-year-old Jortinder Robinson, for the 16 per cent of Alberta teens smoke like him, where there's a will, there's a way.

"You can always find the ones who don't ID," he says as he and friend Joey Kraft share a cigarette on a park bench right in front of the school. "And if that doesn't work, you can get an 18-year-old to buy it for you."

Just for the record, I didn't check the boys for ID, and thus will have to trust them that those are their real names.

But if a tightening of access to cigarettes and the health warnings that come from this dangerous habit don't scare off the likes of Jortinder and Joey right now, hopefully the verdict from the healthier among them might, in time, prompt them to butt out for good.

"I would never date a smoker," says Kelsey. "I hate the smell, and I don't like guys who don't care about their health."