CAMH Welcomes Tax Break on Smoking Cessation Aids

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) welcomed today’s announcement by the Minister of Health Promotion, the Hon. Jim Watson, of a new Provincial Sales Tax (PST) exemption for tobacco cessation aids, to take effect on August 13, 2007.

The PST exemption will apply to over-the-counter nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products including gum, lozenges, nicotine patches, inhalers, sprays and patches at point-of-sale. This new measure will be a welcome addition to the range of tools that CAMH and its healthcare and community partners are using with the support of the Ministry of Health Promotion to help Ontarians quit smoking.

“Statistics indicate that at any given time there are as many as 600,000 people in Ontario who want to try to quit smoking, and incentives like this have the potential of tipping the balance for thousands of them,” said Dr. Peter Selby, Clinical Head of Addictions at CAMH.

“Anything we can do to help people quit smoking is a benefit. We have to diversify the ways in which we can reach smokers, and removing the PST on NRTs is an important next step in eliminating the economic barrier to smoking cessation,” Dr. Selby said.

Dr. Selby is principal investigator of CAMH’s highly successful STOP Study, which has demonstrated significant success in helping groups of smokers quit. With funding form the Ministry of Health Promotion, the STOP Study has helped approximately 31,000 Ontarians quit smoking successfully for a period of six months or greater.

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The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is one of the leading addiction and mental health organizations in North America and Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital. CAMH is a Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre, and is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. CAMH combines clinical care, research, policy, education and health promotion to transform the lives of people impacted by mental health and addiction issues.

For more information contact Michael Torres, CAMH Media Relations Coordinator, at (416) 595-6015 or Public_Affairs@camh.net