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Tobacco
Smoking is a major public health issue and a leading cause of premature death affecting smokers and non-smokers in Canada. Tobacco-related illnesses and diseases are urgent issues in First Nations and Inuit communities, where smoking rates are more than triple the rate for the rest of Canada.
On this page:
Health Canada promotes tobacco control and provides resources to communities with a view to improving the health status of First Nations and Inuit people.
- The Tobacco Effects page provides facts about nicotine, second-hand smoke, smoking during pregnancy, and the harmful effects of smoking.
- The Help on Quitting Smoking page provides practical tips on how to quit smoking. Several methods and useful information are presented.
Traditional and Non-traditional Use of Tobacco
First Nations people
For many First Nations people, tobacco has been used traditionally in ceremonies, rituals, and prayer for thousands of years. It is used for a variety of medicinal purposes and its ceremonial use has powerful spiritual meaning establishing a direct communication link between the person giving and the spiritual world receiving. In the traditional sense, the most powerful way of communicating with the spirits is to smoke tobacco in a sacred pipe.
While tobacco is sacred, the recreational use of tobacco with its high content of nicotine, is addictive and harmful. First Nations Elders maintain that this type of use is disrespectful of the spiritual, medicinal, and traditional use of tobacco.
The recreational use (or misuse) of tobacco is any use of tobacco in a non-traditional way. For example, smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco or snuff, smoking non-traditional tobacco in non-sacred pipes or smoking cigars. There is an important distinction between the traditional and non-traditional use of tobacco as one is respectful of First Nations customs, the other being dangerous and harmful.
Traditional tobacco has been used by many First Nations people to:
- Pray;
- Give thanks to the Creator and Mother Earth;
- Communicate with the spirits; and
- Purify the mind and heal the body.
Inuit
Inuit do not practise the traditional or ceremonial use of tobacco.
Facts on Smoking Rates
The First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada reports the following facts on smoking rates in First Nations and Inuit communities:
- Fifty nine percent of on-reserve First Nations people smoke;
- Fifty eight percent of Inuit in the north smoke;
- Almost half of Inuit (46%) who smoke started smoking at age 14 or younger; and
- The majority of on-reserve First Nations people who smoke (52%) started smoking between the ages of 13 and 16.
These statistics are from the First Nations Regional Health Longitudinal Survey 2002/2003, 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 2004 Baseline Study among First Nations On-reserve and Inuit in the North, Environics Research Group.
