The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
More than 22,000 Manitobans butted out last year, giving the province the second-lowest percentage of puffers in the nation, according to a new report. A new Canadian Cancer Society survey shows that Manitoba's smoking rate dropped two percentage points between 2003 and 2004. According to the report, just under one in five Ð 19 per cent Ð of Manitobans are lighting up. Only B.C., with 16 per cent of the population smoking, has a lower rate. It's a dramatic turnaround for Manitoba, which only four years ago had the highest smoking rate in Canada at 26 per cent. Anti-tobacco advocates credit the province's indoor public smoking ban Ð introduced last October Ð with playing a crucial role in the decline. "Smoking bans are one of the top three things you can do to reduce smoking, so certainly it's had an impact," Murray Gibson of the Manitoba Tobacco Reduction Alliance told the Winnipeg Free Press. The Canadian Cancer Society's report compared statistics from the first half of 2003 to the first half of 2004. Some of the specific findings include: Twenty-four per cent of Manitobans aged 20 to 24 smoke. Twenty-three per cent of those aged 25 to 44 smoke. Twenty-one per cent of those aged 15 to 19 smoke. Fifteen per cent of those over 45 smoke.
