But a good cigar is a smoke |
When
I went on
holiday
some time ago there were two queues at the booking counter, smoking
and non-smoking. The non-smoking queue was extremely long and a few
of the people decided to skip the queue and join the smoking one.
That seemed fair at the time. However when they boarded the ‘plane
they were (quite rightly) thrust to the back near the toilet where
they wouldn’t bother anyone with their pools of noxious gas.
Shortly after that they started to give the smokers those looks. You
know, the looks they reserve for examining something quite unsavoury.
It turned out that they were non-smokers that had jumped the queue
and now had to tolerate all the fumes that were quickly filling the
back of the aeroplane. I think they have now banned smoking
completely on aeroplanes and quite right too. I mean when you’re up
there watching the wing wobble up and down and the air hostess rush
by looking rather distraught, you don’t want some maniac sitting
next to you pushing clouds of blue smoke in your face, it’s not
going to help you if you’re hyper-ventilating. Smoking is a big taboo today. Adverts are banned and every packet you see has a government health warning on it. I haven’t read them recently but they all follow the same theme. If you smoke these cigarettes you will die in horrible screaming agony and go to Hell where a thousand demons will poke you with smouldering branches etc., (well I did say I haven’t read the labels recently). Sorry fellas, in advertising they called that the “Hard sell advert”. People don’t take any notice of terrible news, they just don’t read it. If you wanted to upset a smoker you could put a small table on the side of the packet showing how much money they must’ve spent over how many years of smoking at a certain number of fags. Now that’s the sort of weapon to use on smokers (my mother used that), that and “If you smoke these cigarettes your clothes will smell and all your shirts will have small holes in them caused by ash”. The
big question
today
seems to be “How do we stop people smoking?” and to be quite
honest I’m not sure they want to. They now have two very lucrative
markets, the first being cigarettes and the second the things that
stop you smoking them. I was investigating the second item the other
day. I believe it costs in the region of £15 per week for several
months to use some form of patch to stop a smoker. There are the
cheaper patches of course. You only need one of these each week and
they guarantee to stop you smoking, you stick it on your mouth.
They’ll hypnotise you they’ll stick pins in your ear, play you
tapes or videos. In fact there is probably an industry out there to
stop you smoking as big as the tobacco industry. The question is, I
suppose, what will both these industries do when people do stop
smoking? Admittedly
smoking is
a
terrible habit. However, a long time ago people were lured onto the
weed by some pretty powerful advertising and a lot of images that
enhanced the idea. These same images are still apparent in the old
movies we see on T.V. I suppose it won’t be long before they
“digitally enhance” a lot of the old movies and clean up the
scenes where the hero takes out a cigarette. There’ll be some
strange questions then I’ll warrant. “Mummy why do all the men in
this picture keep scratching their noses like that?” and “I
didn’t know Sherlock Holmes liked a bubble pipe?” To say nothing
of the old songs “Smut Gets in Your Eyes” or “On Top of Old
Stokey” and things in general that have reference to the weed. I
suppose they’re at work now tippexing the history books so that
“Sir Walter Raleigh came back from the New World with a cargo of and
some potatoes”. They didn’t get that right either.
They say the potato was in France a few years before it came here. Anyway the point is that THIS “New World” seems to want the people to put away the weed and lead a healthier life. I’m all for that, I think a healthier world would be a happier world and I wish them luck. However, I do wish they would show as much enthusiasm concerning alcohol, drugs, chemical plants, electrical powerlines and a whole host of other things that want sorting out too. One
reason smokers
get a
lot of flak is that there are so many of them and they are easy to
identify. On the other hand we could make people who drink far too
much wear a badge saying so “I’m almost an alcoholic”. Also,
people that work hard towards the pollution of this planet in
industry could be given a special radiation logo that glowed “I’m
killing the planet and raping the forests”. Yet, I suppose they’d
leave them at home or wear them under their alcohol badges. So the
easiest people to identify are the smokers. Those bleary-eyed people
with tiny holes in their best shirts and a cough that comes from
their boots. Some
people are so
incensed by smoking they treat them as another race. The other day I
heard a lady suggest that all smokers should be put to the end of all
National Health waiting lists as smoking was a sort of self-inflicted
injury. I thought that attitude was a little fierce. I mean what
about people that have accidents playing sport, Isn’t that just as
self-inflicted? Should they go to the end of the list too? This
recent inconsideration of smokers, when it comes to medical health,
could be very dangerous. What if all the smokers suddenly decided not
to pay National Health? What if they decided not to give blood?.
Quite a few of them do I believe. What if all the smokers stopped
donating their organs and filling in those kidney donor cards? I
think we should be very careful how we treat smokers. If we continue
to treat them as undesirables (medically) they may begin to think
they are. This could be disastrous as you and I know we want their
livers, kidneys and any other thing they haven’t contaminated. I
mean let’s face it, who’s kidney would you rather have, an
alcoholic’s or a smoker’s? Don’t
get it wrong, I
know smoking is dirty habit. I realise that people put themselves
through needless pain and suffering but I do think we should stop
and carefully consider some of the ways we deal with it. For example
now, in government buildings and places smoking is prohibited.
Now, maybe I’m just whistling “Dixie” here but I don’t think
that by banning smoking completely from a place stops the smokers. It
could be the case that it does stop the smokers using that building
or they may try and get around the ban. For example, they often
mention how attendance at cinemas has fallen off. Well I know a
couple of smokers that used to go but now as they are treated as
members of a lower cast and are not allowed to smoke there they
don’t. Maybe that entertainment area should re-think its policy
about this form of pollution. They don’t mind polluting our minds
with some of the films they produce but the punters must not pollute
the cinema. I suppose for some people the most tortuous moment in a
film today is when one of the actors on screen lights up but they
can’t. No
smoking in
government
buildings sounds a very healthy policy I suppose but does that mean
that all government employees are non-smokers?, I think not. What do
these people do when they want a fag? Smokers will always find a way
to satisfy their craving. They will dive into cupboards; hide in
loos; sneak a few puffs at some inconspicuous corner. They play a
very dangerous game as most of the cupboards, loos or corners are not
designed as smoking areas. In fact some are perfect fire traps and
,when a waste-paper basket becomes the only “ash-tray”, they can
cause a lot more deaths than their passive smoking ever could. I
don’t think a “no smoking policy” helps to stop smoking it just
causes the smokers to either run for cover or just stop attending.
This is rather sad as these potential customers may never know the
benefits of healthy exercise or an evening of fun as they have
already been condemned to stay out and suck their weeds. On the other
hand smokers will be the first to tell you that they too hate places
full of stale smoke. They too like clean air and will soon open a
window if they think they are becoming a nuisance but is a complete
ban the answer? I
recently visited a
large
refinery where a spark in the wrong place would mean instant death.
What really surprised me was the humane approach they had towards
their smokers. In selected areas they provided civilised smoking
rooms complete with ash-trays and matches. I mentioned this to one of
the guides and was informed that they couldn’t stop the smokers so
they tried to contain the problem. I commended them on such a
civilised approach as I think they wanted to keep their installation
safe and their workers happy. After all, some of the smokers were
doing really useful jobs (almost as good as non-smokers). All in all I think today’s society has a lot of problems and smoking is only one of them. However recent trends like “No Smoking Day” and all this emphasis on the smokers seems a little over the top. On the other hand it does stop us dealing with the more serious issues of the day. A friend of mine claims just that. He thinks the “powers that be” are keen to promote no smoking campaigns as it keeps people from addressing some of the very real problems that beset our society like poverty, power-lines, nuclear waste and things of that nature. I wonder?
In the end we have to remember that smokers are people. They are not some second class form of life that tries to co-exist with us. They have a bad habit , most are trying to give it up and any help they can get should be a little more positive. We should remember that they too serve a role on this planet. So “Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way, By Trophet-flare to Judgment Day…” as Kipling would say remember the pint of blood that saved aunty’s life or the chair you’re sitting on may have been the product of one of these lesser mortals.
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