Up in smoke?

I think everyone agrees inhaling smoke of any kind is bad and detrimental to ones health, but should it be regulated and penalized into a criminal act? I say no. Smokers know they are under attack and old habits are hard to break. Most smokers would quit on a dime if they could, with success.

We Americans (and I say we) want everything and we want it right now. It’s almost a curse. Stemming the tide of new tobacco users and helping long-term smokers quit is going to be a war of attrition and that war is going to be won by education and programs that help smokers quit, but only when they are ready.

I have to say, in this entire anti-smoking furor what really irks a smoker and should irk most ex-smokers is the self-righteous indignation non-smokers exhibit toward the smoking problem and it IS a problem that all smokers already recognize without constant reminder. Smoking is not illegal, but smokers are becoming labeled as social criminals and most smokers fear eventually, they will not be allowed to smoke in their own homes.

Let’s back up a bit and look at some history.

Tobacco usage is nothing like it was 40 years ago, but in today’s arguments, nobody seems to acknowledge that fact. Smoking is deeply ingrained in American culture and it’s just been in the last 40 years that the government has made inroads into educating people about its dangerous side effects.

When I was a teen in Georgia, I got my first job sacking groceries. What is now recognized as the gum and candy bar display, was then, filled with snuff, plug tobacco and chewing tobacco. Another equally large display was for cigarette tobacco, rolling-papers and many different cigars, pipe tobacco, and various paraphernalia for consuming tobacco. Behind the counter were cartons and individual packs of cigarettes.

95% of the store customers bought some sort of tobacco product and many times a kid came into the store with a note and took home a plug of “ta-backer for Paw” or “some smokes for Granny” and it was just the way it was back then. Everyone smoked, it seemed, and Americans were daily subjected to smoking commercials and movie stars with “cigs” hanging out of their mouths. They weren’t even the bad guys, unless it was a German officer holding his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, or a Japanese officer with his cigarette holder and of course all cowboys with black hats smoked.

Ian Fleming’s James Bond character smoked seven packs a day. J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters smoked pipes. Smoking was a normal adult pastime.

I discovered an intense fascination with smoking earlier than most and began my tobacco romance with one of my Mom’s Kent-brand cigarettes, with the now infamous “Micronite filter”. The “Micronite filter” was marketed to cool down the hot smoke and make the smoking experience just that much better. Later when it was discovered that asbestos was harmful when inhaled, the “Micronite filter” was replaced (with something that was marketed as an improvement).

By the time I was eleven, I always had a pack of cigarettes on my person and in 1965 at the ripe age of 13 (and a committed smoking veteran of 6 years) I saw my first anti-smoking commercial. It was of a man sitting against a tree smoking, with his small son next to him. The man laid the cigarette pack down and the small boy looked at it. A voice and text pronounced “Like father, like son”. My Dad and Mom smoked, as did all adults, it seemed, and this was my first inkling that smoking was not something that adults did because they were adult, but rather...a vice.

All through school I was punished and grounded for smoking, but never quit. I particularly enjoyed “Viceroy’ cigarettes for some reason. I was told smoking was bad for me. Nothing deterred me though and my Dad told me the day I graduated from high school, I could walk through the door with a carton under each arm and pack in my pocket…and I did, except I couldn’t afford the cartons.

Within 3 years of smoking to my hearts content, I quit cold turkey. I was overseas in Thailand and G.I. cigarettes weren’t taxed, so I could buy them for 23 cents per pack and I quit anyway.

What caused me to start in the first place was I wanted to be an adult or a “grown-up” as we called them in the day. I wanted to be like everyone else and everyone else smoked. That’s the same reason I learned to cuss, swear, curse, use profanity, whatever you want to call it and in later years I eliminated that bad habit also. I found out that being adult was actually about responsibility and it was up to me to fulfill it in my own life, regardless of what other “adults” were doing.

The reason I quit is, I already hated cigarette smoking and wanted to quit. The day I took my first Karate lesson was the day I quit. I couldn’t breath. Smoking had already taken its toll and I was suffocating. I decided right then, that if there is a choice I can make between smoking or Karate and health, I was going to lay the cigarettes down and I did and never looked back.

Non-smokers need to reevaluate their stance on smoking and smokers and realize their problem with smoking is shared by those with the addiction. Our old enemy, time, can be our friend if we just let it do its effectual work.