OTTAWA SHOULD LIGHTEN UP ON LIGHTING UP

HEALTH CANADA is going to be the death of me yet.

Blood pressure rising . . . heart racing . . . approaching psychosis . . .

The autocratic Ottawa outfit continues to inflict its version of good
'nproper health on an entire nation while ignoring all entreaties for just
an iota of common sense.

This, the same agency that persists in ignoring a whole body of expert
research that disproves the alleged harmful effects of second-hand smoke -
research commissioned by the World Health Organization, which was itself
dismayed by the findings, thus attempting to bury the results - is now
playing the health heavy with a bunch of hapless refugees.

As my colleague Michelle Shephard reported in The Star a few days ago, the
first batch of displaced Kosovars transplanted (however temporarily) to CFB
Trenton have been overwhelmed by the generosity of Canadians.

They've been given clothes, toys for the children, shoes, food, toiletries,
comfort kits, blankets, everything these poor, dispossessed wretches might
need in a country that is foreign to their culture and their nature.

But what they want most is cigarettes. Surely, that's not too much to ask
in a country of plenty, where nicotine is not a contraband substance.

Surely, even the twisted-sphincter zealots at Health Canada can appreciate
that, in some cultures - call them backward, if you wish, or unenlightened
- - smoking is not the greatest of evils.

Maybe these refugees have had enough deprivation and discomfort in their
lives. Maybe they can do without the intolerance of the nico-nazis.

Perhaps, as humans, they long for just a whiff of pleasure.

Red Cross officials have put the word out that the Kosovars are desperate
for tobacco. But the international aid agency hasn't provided cigarettes
since World War II.

Working behind the scenes, Canadian Forces personnel in Trenton tried to do
the right thing. Military representatives, I'm told, approached some of the
tobacco manufacturers in this country to ask for tobacco donations. And the
tobacco industry - yes, those death-mongers - would have been pleased to
help. But they were forbidden.

John McDonald, spokesman for Rothman's, says he made inquiries, though he
knew instinctively his overture would be rebuffed.

``I received a call back from the Toronto office'' of Health Canada,
McDonald reports. ``I explained to them that we'd received several calls,
including one from a Canadian Forces chaplain. These refugees were looking
for cigarettes.''

Health Canada bureaucrats wouldn't bend.

The snag is the Tobacco Act, which specifically prevents tobacco companies
from providing their products at no cost. This legislation was designed to
keep the tobacco companies from giving out cigarettes to an impressionable
(young) public, particularly by way of consumer promotion and brand-testing
freebies. Which might be a legitimate objective, but hardly applies to
chain-smoking Kosovo refugees.

At Health Canada, nobody will even address this situation as an issue worth
considering, or re-considering. I know, I tried.

This doesn't mean the public must refrain from donating cigarettes. Those
who wish may forward them to CFB Trenton, and many have done so already.
It's called having a little bit of compassion for a group of stressed-out,
bewildered people who are heavy smokers and who remain terribly worried
about their friends and families back in the Balkans.

Maybe the bureaucrats can't see beyond their own pinched noses. But most
Canadians are not so blinded by dogma, even when smoke gets in their eyes.