Almost one third of cigarettes sold in Ontario are contraband: study

TORONTO – A new study suggests nearly a third of cigarettes sold in Ontario are purchased illegally.

The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco commissioned research that tracked the cigarette-buying habits of people in Ontario.

The study found 32 per cent of respondents purchased contraband cigarettes, a figure that the coalition says is the highest in the country.

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They say contraband purchases are most common in northern Ontario, where more than half the respondents — 51 per cent — reported buying illegal cigarettes.

They say the province needs to implement stronger enforcement measures to clamp down on the trade, which they say supports organized crime.

The online poll surveyed 1,500 adult Ontario smokers over 12 weeks ending on December 10, 2016.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.