Native Cigarettes Canada

For a smoker in search of a healthy alternative, native cigarettes are a great option. Made by a tribe-owned and operated company, these smokes are made with high quality burley and flue-cured tobaccos that make for a healthier smoke at an affordable price. Plus, they contain fewer additives than your standard commercial cigarette, which means they’re also safer for you and the environment.

Native Cigarettes Canada at the end of an anonymous blue metal box surrounded by a towering green fence, the factory is easy to miss. Inside, however, a handful of workers produce the controversial new lifeblood of Kahnawake Mohawk territory and, some critics argue, a dire threat to Canadian public health. This is the booming, untaxed operation known as GRE, or Grand River Enterprises. It has grown from a two-man shop to a multimillion-dollar business that funds local services, and is now the fourth largest tobacco manufacturer in Canada.

The Legal Landscape: Native Cigarettes and Canadian Regulations

Yet this success has drawn criticism from anti-smoking activists, who say GRE is a scourge on Canadian society. They point to the fact that despite the high tobacco taxes in Ontario and Quebec, GRE cigarettes are often sold to non-Aboriginal people outside the reserves. This is particularly true of the Akwesasne reserve, which straddles both provincial and international borders, making it hard for law enforcement to crack down.

Nevertheless, there is some good news: The government has introduced measures to combat the illicit trade in indigenous cigarettes. For example, sniffer dogs are now patrolling the streets of Ontario and Quebec in an effort to stop the smuggling of these low-tax smokes.