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Lesley Bohm, Vancouver

Drug vending machines a reincarnation of cigarette machines

Re: Vending machine drugs worth look, Guest editorial, Dec. 30

The first thing that came to mind when I read the headline, Vending machine drugs worth look was the great, great grand-daddy of all drug vending machines: Cigarette — or, more accurately, nicotine (the most addictive drug known) — vending machines.

Once a very common sight in bars, pubs, restaurants, hotels and many other public places and workplaces, cigarette vending machines are now on the critically endangered list. Personally, I can’t wait until they’re extinct.

But before you shed too many tears for Big Tobacco, rest assured that their obscene profits continue to skyrocket, primarily as a result of their ongoing exploitation of kids (with regular cigarettes, e-cigs and other “next generation” products) … most tragically, in developing nations.

And at the risk of sounding cold, callous and uncaring toward the approximately 1,300 fatal illicit drug overdose victims in B.C. in 2017 — tobacco killed four to five times that number of people. Does anyone think of tobacco as a “public health crisis”? Hell, no!

B.C. has the lowest smoking rate in the country in spite our tobacco-friendly provincial governments, not because of them. Case is point: Neither Adrian Dix nor Judy Darcy can even be bothered to deal with some extremely ‘low-hanging fruit’; getting tobacco out of pharmacies and stores that contain pharmacies in B.C. … for the last five years, the one and only province/territory in the country that still allows such blatant hypocrisy.

Errol E. Povah, President, Airspace Action on Smoking and Health, Delta

Why is carbon tax on natural gas so high?

Regardless of whether the carbon tax is a good tax or not such a good tax, can Premier John Horgan explain why the current carbon tax on environmentally friendly natural gas, relatively speaking, is greater than 70 per cent of the cost of natural gas per cubic metre while the carbon tax on gasoline and diesel fuels is approximately six to seven per cent of the cost per litre?

William J. Barrett, Abbotsford