When I logged on to the University’s homepage last week, I glanced left, as I often do, to see what banal research project they were promoting. This time, however, something caught my eye. York and Leeds universities are carrying out a trial on a new “school intervention programme” which “raises awareness among children of the hazards of second-hand smoke and empowers them to negotiate smoking restrictions with other family members at home.” Now, I know what you’re thinking – here goes the smoker, talking about unfair intervention on their disgusting pastime, he probably likes Vindaloos and Kilroy. Well, those assumptions are false.
Instead, I actually thought, isn’t there something ironic about the relationship between ‘cool’ and the cigarette? The nagging, droning, sensible masses seem to have placed their muffling right hand over the whimpering cries of proponents for the ‘cool’ cigarette. They’re succeeding, just about. I had to scroll down nine pages on Google Images to find a single photo vaguely representing cigarettes in a positive light (and for some reason it was Simon Cowell, bizarre) from a simple ‘cigarettes’ search. But they’ve got a hard task: James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley with a spliff – there might be some tobacco in there somewhere (probably not) – and of course, the Guevara cigar. It’s hard to imagine these emblems of cool without a stick hanging from their lips, but I expect their breed may die in years to come – and don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that’s a bad thing either way.
The irony lies with this: smoking wasn’t a part of their apparent recklessness. These idols were conformists when it came to that thing eroding their alveoli. Maybe it’s become a statement since the past – just look at Pete Doherty – but then; in that more sentimentally free time there was no bother. After all, as the famous advert went, “More Doctors Smoke Camels than Any Other Cigarette”. It was the individual who stood up and said, “No, I’m not going to smoke because I don’t want to” – and they were allowed to, bravo!
Now times have changed and the conformism is back, but this time, it’s barking incessantly.
To the organisers of this teaching programme I ask, why cigarettes? The bans, the graphic warnings on packets, a lockdown on any future positive representations of cigarettes and the sneering of the sensible in respectable company is surely doing a fine job for this particular vice. If we, as a society, have so much of a problem with it then we should ban the pastime and then have a look at the more serious effects of alcohol, obesity, stupidity and perhaps general time-wasting.
Ironically, these children are following the same pathway which led to the non-smokers becoming an imposition of individuality. In the same way as smoking gained popularity from well considered marketing spiels, the anti-smoking lobby is banging its fist down on anyone who doesn’t heed the messages. In an ever homogenous world, my advice to the University’s kids, these progenies of “intervention,” is: listen and make a value judgement, not listen and heed. *chesty, flemmy cough* Think for yourselves young ones, think for yourselves!