About 60 per cent of readers would approve if governments set a goal of ending the cigarette industry over a period of years, a recent online poll shows.
That matches a proposal for ending the provinces' marathon lawsuit against the tobacco industry made by some anti-smoking organizations, which advocate getting rid of it entirely as part of a settlement.
(Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew appeared to signal early in May that the provinces were moving toward a financial settlement with tobacco companies that would allow them to continue operating.)
Women were more open to the idea than men, but not overwhelmingly:
Age plays an interesting role: older readers are more in favour, while they also have higher smoking rates.
As age groups increase, the proportion of active smokers falls, while the proportion of ex-smokers rises. Under-40s have a notably higher proportion of never-smokers. One way of reading this is that people with a greater familiarity with tobacco are more in favour of this proposal.
There is a very firm relationship, though, between whether people are smokers (or not) and support for the proposal. So if the theory above is correct, it would broadly have to do with familiarity with smoking, not necessarily as a smoker.
There are sharp ideological differences, not a great sign for a project that would need all-party support over a period of 10 or 15 years, over governments of different parties, to be pulled off:
There is a moderate connection with support or opposition to cannabis legalization and openness to cannabis use: