People First Media program archive
Header

“No justification” for tobacco

February 21st, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized

Errol Povah’s long struggle for a tobacco-free world

picture 454Several years ago, Errol Povah crossed Canada on a “journey for a tobacco-free world“–which he also described as a “cross-Canada shore-to-shore ‘run, walk or crawl’ awareness and fund-raising event.” It wasn’t the beginning of his anti-tobacco activism, but represented an escalation of his almost life-long advocacy and activism to end the damages associated with tobacco.

“‘Tobacco control’ is no longer good enough,” Errol wrote on his blog. “Given what is now known about both tobacco itself and the industry that so aggressively markets the product — globally and primarily to teens and children — there is no justification whatsoever for civilized countries to allow the tobacco industry to continue to exist!”

Errol Povah is also president of Airspace Action on Smoking and Health, a volunteer group that describes itself as “Canada’s sworn enemies of the tobacco industry.” The group believes “tobacco is a public health issue that has nothing whatsoever to do with “telling others how to live” any more than drunk driving laws do.”

We’re joined in the studio by Errol Povah.

454_february_21_2013_sm

Image: Errol Povah (right) in front of the headquarters of Imperial Tobacco in Montreal, November 2010. By La Voix Pop.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 Both comments and pings are currently closed.