They come in flavours like peach, wild berry, chocolate, pina colada and cotton candy -- but they're a danger to your health.
The Northwestern Ontario Youth Action Alliance came to Winnipeg on Thursday to protest the sale of flavoured cigarettes -- also known as cigarillos -- which they say are being used by tobacco companies to lure in youths.
Youth protesting the sale of flavoured cigarettes march down Portage Avenue.
The cigarillos are sold in packages that look lip gloss or candy.
"Cancer shouldn't come in a candy wrapper," said Sam McKibbon, a senior peer leader who helped launch the Flavour...Gone! campaign. "This is important because the tobacco industry is wrapping a deadly cancerous product in a candy wrapper."
The sale of individual cigarillos jumped from 50,000 in 2001 Canada-wide to more than 80 million in 2006, Winnipeg North MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis said.
The current Tobacco Act doesn't regulate flavoured cigarettes as strictly as regular cigarettes, Wasylycia-Leis said. To address the shortfall of the current act, she introduced a private members bill in June to change the labelling, packaging and sale of flavoured tobacco products.
Cigarettes can't be sold in packages with less than 20 and must have health warnings displayed. The same rules don't apply for cigarillos, according to Wasylycia-Leis.
Youth coordinators of the street campaign presented a certificate to Wasylycia-Leis to recognize her work in parliament on the issue of tobacco companies targeting youth.
Around 20 youths, all between 14 and 19 years-old, hit the streets after a press conference held at the Radisson Hotel to hand out pamphlets.
meghan.hurley@freepress.mb.ca
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