I
expect to raise a lot of hackles and then be thoroughly shot down by
overwhelming statistics and heartbreaking anecdotes, but it seems absolutely
clear to me that tobacco is playing the
traditional role of a scapegoat. An immensely disproportionate amount of
the blame, the approbation, and the legislation which should fall on the
burners of oil and coal, the plastics purveyors, the spewers of toxins into our
air, rivers and streets, on all our poisoners, has been deflected to the back
of one goat: tobacco.
I
know that tobacco is harmful and that it causes cancer and other health
problems. But, it does enjoy two slightly mitigating qualities that most other pollutants
lack: 1) Tobacco affords pleasure to many individuals. 2) One can choose
whether or not one wants to partake.
As
for secondary smoke, I have it on reliable authority (namely the pulmonologist
who gave me a breath test in a hospital in Poughkeepsie five years ago) that
when it comes to causing lung damage, walking down one average city block is
the equivalent of smoking ten cigarettes. You can’t tell me that the air
quality for a bunch of people sitting in a sidewalk café on a busy city street
would be appreciably improved if none of them were smoking cigarettes.
Workplaces, large restaurants, trains, buses, sure – but smoking sections, not
a total ban, is the reasonable solution.
In
the ancient Hebraic or Druidic scapegoatting or sin-eating rites an irrational
hysteria developed around the subject, the victim. You can detect a similar irrational
hysteria about tobacco.
Our
air, our water, our food are full of dangerous chemicals, overeating and anti-depressants
are making us fat and dull, wherever we go, screens that talk and sing display
words and images that fill our souls with anxiety, yet all the power of the
government to ease the pollution that assails us is centered on. . . cigarettes!
This
screed was actually prompted by a story in today’s newspapers about tobacco
water pipes being banned in cafes in Alexandria
(Egypt).
!
