Is “less than 5 by 35” still achievable?

Five years of struggle and setbacks

This year marks the fifth anniversary of Canada’s Tobacco Endgame Summit. On September 30, 2016, dozens of tobacco control researchers, leaders, advocates and policy makers from across the country converged at Queen’s University in Kingston for an ambitious, two-day deliberation on the future of tobacco control in Canada. The lofty goal of the summit was to reshape and reignite tobacco control in Canada and to set the stage for accelerated and substantial reductions in tobacco use, referred to as the “endgame.” One of the major outcomes of the summit was a proposed new national target—to reduce tobacco use to less than 5% prevalence by 2035 (“<5 by 35”).