Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that we must do more on the education side. We should be taking a portion of these excise taxes and using them exclusively for education, focusing on youth in particular.
I urge him to consider carefully the notion of cutting his lung out and taking it around to schools. It would be difficult for him to accomplish the latter if he performs the former. However if he is looking for a volunteer to help carry his lungs around I can help depending on whether I have the time.
There is the issue of photographs on cigarette packages. The law of unintended consequences sometimes says that one of the best ways to get teenagers or youth to do something is to tell them to do the opposite. It is perverse to even consider in some ways but I would bet that today there are probably young people, in schools or outside of schools, collecting these cigarette packages and trading gangrenous feet for cancerous lungs and that sort of thing. In all honesty, nothing makes a young person cooler than being told that it is absolutely wrong to pursue a particular behaviour. Of course I was a well behaved young person, as we know.
The issue of the black market is another important issue; it is not just black lungs. The government is ignoring the fact that if it were to raise taxes beyond a certain level there would almost definitely be a greater level of black market activities. I hope that does not happen.