Kids have easy access.

Youth are smoking contraband cigarettes in alarming numbers. Cheap prices, easy access and no age-checks means youth, who shouldn't be smoking at all, are having no trouble getting tobacco through the contraband market.

Criminal are selling contraband tobacco to teens and the proof is all over the school yard.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009 the Canadian Convenience Stores Association conducted a major study into the proliferation of contraband tobacco at high schools in Ontario and Quebec. Over hundreds of sites were surveyed and the results were staggering. Nearly one-third of the cigarettes found at Ontario high schools and over 40 percent of those found at Quebec high schools were contraband products.

The study conducted its research by visiting schools after hours and collecting discarded cigarette butts from around school property.

Organized crime groups use the lucrative trade in contraband tobacco to finance other, more serious, criminal activities. Contraband tobacco smuggling is often accompanied by drugs and guns.

Contraband tobacco is funding criminal organizations with links to other illegal activity such as firearms and drug smuggling. As of 2011, the RCMP has identified over 175 organized crime groups involved in the trafficking of contraband tobacco.

Lab analysis shows that insect eggs, dead flies, mould, even human feces have appeared in contraband cigarettes.

Contraband cigarettes are killing small businesses and threatening the livelihoods of thousands of convenience store owners. These contraband cigarettes, which are being smuggled throughout Canada in record numbers, now represent one out of every three cigarettes purchased.

With smugglers offering tobacco prices as low as $8 per carton versus nearly $90 for legal cigarettes, legitimate retailers are being forced to compete in an unfair playing field. This means individual stores are losing tens of thousands of dollars in sales every year.

You are not in this fight alone. Together our members have worked to build this national coalition of people and businesses all dedicated to fighting this growing problem. And we need your help fighting on behalf of Canadians.

These are cigarettes that are being illegally imported from places like China or illegally sold, tens of thousands of cartons each day, right here in Canada. This all happens with absolutely no government inspection, testing, oversight or taxation.

Canada is being flooded with untested, unregulated and untaxed cigarettes.

CTV's investigative news program, W5, reported in 2011 that contraband tobacco is robbing government of as much as $2 billion in taxes every year.