Canada: British Columbia Adds Sales Tax to Cigarettes

Going into effect this week, British Columbia’s (BC) tobacco sales tax rules mean that online marketplaces, like Amazon and eBay, will now be responsible for collecting provincial sales taxes.

Diane Caruana

July 8, 2022

Effective July 1st, the province has added a tax on other products, including cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.

As of the 1st of January, a 13% tax hike on vaping products has gone into effect, increasing the tax from 7 to 20%. The tax increase is applicable to all vaping products and electronic cigarettes, as well as their refills, whether they contain nicotine or cannabis products. The Ministry of Finance had highlighted that BC was the first Canadian province to introduce such a tax.

Subsequently effective July 1st, the province has added a tax on other products, including cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco. After the tax, a $15.99 cigarette pack will cost an additional 7% or $1.12 extra a pack. “We are moving in line with other provinces to make sure we collect PST on tobacco products,” said Selina Robinson, B.C.’s finance minister.

Teen cannabis vaping

Meanwhile, a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics, reported that between 2013 and 2020 the prevalence of cannabis vaping amongst teens has doubled, with approximately 1 in 3 grade 12 students vaping the substance in 2018 alone.

The review analyzed 17 studies from the United States and Canada published between 2015 and 2021, incorporating of a total of 198,845 surveyed adolescents. Titled, “Prevalence of Adolescent Cannabis Vaping. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of US and Canadian Studies,” the analysis found that the lifetime prevalence of cannabis vaping expanded from 6.1% in 2013, to 13.6% in 2020. Moreover, the prevalence of cannabis vaping doubled between 2017 to 2020, from 7.2% to 13.2%. Additionally, 30-day prevalence increased 7-fold from 2013 to 2020 (1.6% to 8.4%).

“A possible explanation for the upward trajectory in the prevalence of cannabis vaping observed in our study timeframe is the increasing uptake of vaping products generally used among youth and young adults, widening access to cannabis vaping products through legalization of cannabis, and the decrease in perceived risk of harm toward cannabis in the last decade,” said the authors.

Dwindling smoking rates

On the otherhand, the Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey has recently revealed that between 2019 and 2020, there was a 40% drop in smoking rates in this specific age group, from 13.3% to 8%. This figure is encouraging for Health Canada’s smoking prevalence target of 5% for 2035. Moreover the target has already been achieved among those aged 15-19, as the smoking rate is currently no more than 5%.