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Another miserable bloody New Year and I've made my usual stupid resolution to quit enslavement to the ciggy. Chewing my nicorelastic gum like some cow in a field I am ruminating on my past life as a smoker. The thought police say you mustn't think of it as giving up. Well, I'll decide if I'm giving up or gaining and in what proportion. This is a characteristic of smokers - independent thought - erroneous thought perhaps but independent - rugged, like the Marlboro man.
Unless you've just come to earth from the planet Zog you must be aware of the risks of smoking. But what is life if not a long series of calculated risks? Everything we eat is dangerous, everyone we meet is dangerous, practically everything we do is dangerous and we are continually appraising the risk against the reward. I like sushi but every bite is a risk; of course it would be safer without the raw fish - there's a limit to the perils inherent in rice - but then it wouldn't be the same, the entire point would be lost in an attempt to make the experience safe.
Watching a TV debate the other day on the subject of smoking I was struck by one teenage participant who actually asked a smoker if they realised that if they carried on smoking they would die. What, I wonder, is the alternative? Non smoking immortality? A friend from college, in her mid thirties, was diagnosed as having lung cancer in November. Two months later she died. She was a non smoker. It is a mistake, sometimes a fatal mistake, to regard smoking as the source of all evil. A dear friend who smoked like a builder's van developed a cough which everyone assumed was related to the smoking - not so. He was suffering from pulmonary adoema and heart failure. The cardiomyopathy that finally killed him was due more to over-prescription than smoking but everyone's willingness to blame the cigarette made him feel too embarrassed to ask the doctor to pay attention until it was too late.
Evangelical non smokers even say that smokers who have a so called smoking related illness ought to be refused treatment. Ought one conclude therefore that anyone who has had a heart attack through high cholesterol levels or obesity ought to be put to the bottom of the list along with anyone with a sports related injury or drink related problem or bulimia or anorexia or perhaps even stress related illness? Good grief the hospitals would be empty! It is, in fact, my suspicion that without the massive revenue generated by all those smokers puffing away the National Health service would fall apart... thousands of thorassic surgeons would join the dole queues and would have to retrain as spot welders. The figures read like telephone numbers but as much as smokers cost they are worth a great deal more than non smokers in terms of financial contribution to the exchequer. I would argue that they should have their own ward, first class treatment, smoking beds and nicotine flavoured oxygen.
A desire to stick two fingers up at the nannying attitudes of healthies is the greatest incentive I have to start smoking again. With death defying perversity I really want to light that little bonfire in my mouth just in order to demonstrate that I am unbowed, that I shall never succumb to the sensible, the responsible, the adult and long term thing to do. Live fast, die young was the t-shirt motto of my youth, the motto of my approaching middle age is Live fat, die a bit premature or Live fast, get motion sickness. I daresay as I age I'll wind up with one that says Live slow, die eventually, or Live? Die? Who cares? or perhaps I told you smoking was good for you. I just don't want the t-shirt that's a tie dye blank, the who am I?...am I alive? t-shirt. No thanks.
Smoking is, of course, a dumb thing to do. It is expensive and smelly and means that you always have to keep your jacket on so that you have somewhere to put your cigarettes. However, it is only anti social in the company of non-smokers. Many a time and oft I have found myself making friends with other smokers as we huddle together in a smokers' corner at a party and it must be remarked that a behind the bike shed camaraderie exists between complete strangers who share a cigarette. Peace in Northern Ireland would probably be a done deal if everyone smoked. The Native Americans knew a thing or two, after all they didn't call it a pipe of peace for nothing. Could you imagine the scene without one?
"Big Sitting Bear has spoken. Now we will smoke the pipe of peace"
"Excuse me Coughing Elk, may I speak?"
"If you must He-Who-Runs-in-the-Morning-and-eats-Bran"
"I don't smoke. Why don't we share the tofu of peace instead?"
So, even if I never smoke again, I am determined to be tolerant. If my friends continue to smoke, good luck to them. Perhaps they will even blow a little of it my way.
Boswell 1998