SUN MEDIA An MPP is calling for a crackdown on individuals buying illegal cigarettes after reports that trade has jumped to 32 per cent of ...

An MPP is calling for a crackdown on individuals buying illegal cigarettes after reports that trade has jumped to 32 per cent of all tobacco sales.

Haldimand - Norfolk-Brant MPP Toby Barrett said the illegal sales actually are much higher in some rural areas south of London, and now account for three-quarters of cigarette purchases.

"Regrettably it has deep sixed the legal trade and tobacco farmers as well. They can't compete with the tax-free market," Barrett said yesterday.

Most of the illegal cigarettes are sold at lower prices and mainly come from native reserves, he said.

There appears to be a reluctance by authorities to shut down illegal reserve tobacco operations, he said.

"Nobody wants to enforce the law and deal with that directly.

"There would be violence involved," he said.

If police aren't prepared to go after the big players, they should at least pick on the smaller ones -- individuals who buy their cigarettes tax-free at smoke shops, he said.

"Maybe they have only two cartons in the back seat of their car," Barrett said.

The other option is to take a page from the NDP government in the 1990s that cut cigarette taxes to eliminate the illegal market, he said.

"Overnight, 300 smoke shops disappeared at Six Nations (reserve). I observed that," Barrett said.

Ontario's tobacco industry has been in a free fall with about 300 farms growing the once lucrative crop this year, down from 600 a year earlier.

In the early 1980s, tobacco was the largest cash crop in Ontario.

A report released last week by the George Morris Centre, a Guelph agricultural think tank, said the decline in the Ontario tobacco industry is a result of the growth in the illegal trade and translates into more than $2 billion in lost tax revenue.

The industry's decline is not a result of a reduction in smoking, the report said.

Larry Martin, one of the study's authors, said one problem with the illegal cigarettes is they don't comply with regulations on ingredients.

"An already dangerous product may be made even more so when standards are not met," the report said.

The study suggests it makes sense to maintain a tobacco production industry in Ontario to supply the domestic market and, where feasible, the export markets.

"The domestic industry would continue to generate economic activity both for itself and the region in which it is located," the study said.