More than half a million Canadian smokers have lit up in bed and about 116,000 of them admit to dozing off with a lighted cigarette, posing an obvious risk of sparking a fire. Those are just some of the statistics about the behaviour of smokers revealed in the most recent Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey released by Statistics Canada on Monday.

The survey reported that in 2005, 12 per cent of current smokers age 15 years and older reported smoking in bed in the past week (about 580,000 people). Among current smokers who said they had smoked in bed in the past year, 18 per cent reported doing so every day, and another 20 per cent said it was at least a weekly habit, but not a daily one.

Twenty-four per cent of current smokers admitted to falling asleep while smoking in the previous year while in bed, on a sofa or in a chair. Ten per cent said it’s happened at least once.

The numbers are disheartening but not surprising to Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien.
“No, they’re not surprising at all. If you look at where your fire problems are, it is careless smoking in bed,” he said. Fires kill about 400 Canadians a year, according to Therien, and in his opinion too many of them are due to careless smoking.

“They’re very indifferent to a lot of fire-safety messages,” he said of the people who smoke in bed. He also noted that when people fall asleep with a lit cigarette, alcohol or other drugs may have been a factor, making the combined behaviour very dangerous.

One of the Canada Safety Council’s priorities for the summer is fire safety, and Therien wants smokers to remember the possible consequences of smoking in bed and that such behaviour is putting other people at risk.

“For the people who live in and around these people, they should take note of the fact that these people are careless smokers and they are smoking in bed,” he said. “You have all the factors there for a fire fatality or more, because if the house sets on fire the other residents are in there.”

The Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey determined other habits of the approximately five million Canadians who smoke. It also asked where people picked up their smokes, and found the most common place for purchase for 59 per cent of smokers was a small grocery or corner store, followed by a gas station and then a supermarket.

Current smokers were also asked if they had made any attempt to buy cigarettes at a discount in the previous six months. Thirty-six per cent had bought a discount brand, 17 per cent bought from a First Nation’s reserve, 11 per cent went outside the province to get a deal and three per cent identified that they purchased cigarettes that may have been smuggled.

The survey also wanted to know where underage smokers were getting cigarettes, since the legal age to buy them is 19. More than half — 52 per cent — said they obtained tobacco through a friend or relative by taking, buying or being given cigarettes.

The remaining 48 per cent of smokers under age 19 said they were able to buy cigarettes on their own from some kind of retail outlet. A third bought them from a corner store.

Slightly less than half of those respondents said a store had refused to sell them cigarettes at least once in the previous year, and 59 per cent said they had been asked for identification.

Other smoking statistics:

• Nineteen per cent of Canadians, or about five million, were smokers in 2005.

• The number of teens age 15 to 19 who smoke remained unchanged from 2004 at 18 per cent.

• Daily smokers reported smoking an average of 15.7 cigarettes a day.

• More than half of all current smokers (58 per cent) reported using “light” or “mild” cigarettes.

• Ontario reported the highest percentage of people who had never smoked (59 per cent) and Quebec had the lowest (44 per cent).

• Fifteen per cent of Canadian households reported at least one person who smoked inside the home every day or almost every day.

Source: Canada.com