The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves: Or Thoughts on Smoking

More Carrot, Less Stick, Please

Can we talk about something verboten? The last, dirty, rotten, terrible thing. One of the few things that allows total strangers to get in one’s face.

Smoking.

“Smoking what?” you may ask.

See, that’s the interesting thing. The Devil’s Lettice was illegal for most of the USA’s modern history. Dear goddess, how many lives were wrecked over a single joint? How many immigrant and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods lost pillars of their community to incredibly harsh incarceration sentences? During the 1940s through the 1990s, it seemed as if the industry interests and the lifestyle of cigarettes and alcohol would always hold sway.

Flower Power

Then came the decriminalization of cannabis. Canada led the way in 2018 with full legalization, with many states in the U.S. following their example. At the same time, it was balls, hammers, and tongs after tobacco smokers. Jeez. Is there anything sweeter than that slender tube of delight, the cig? And don’t get me started on the rare but full-tits-on joy of a cheap cigar. I want to have a good time with it; we’re not marrying.

Today, a vast anti-smoking campaign is taking the world by storm. And that’s a good thing. And it’s hard to take a sane, moral, and cohesively persuasive stance on a dirty, expensive habit that invites near-universal censure.

Near. That’s the thing. Not universal.

Now, humanity is constantly adding to our store of knowledge; let’s take a moment to applaud ourselves as a species, us, with our admirable opposable thumbs, dirty limericks, and propensity to be wired to love and honor — pizza.

This Is Your Brain — Brilliant

The problem is that we, as in “the best scientific minds,” are still trying to figure out what animates the meat puppet sitting in your chair reading this. We’re still determining exactly how the brain/mind works. If you refute that, I suggest you submit your paper to the Nobel Prize committee and immediately plan your attire for the awards ceremony.

A Chilling Quiet

In NYC in the 2000s, the signs of the times were changing. Non-smoking indoors. Secondhand smoke and all.

But then came the no-dancing laws — or the enforcement of them. I never received a straight answer about the need to squash dancing. Was it licensing? An insurance issue? Religious objections? I believed We were not dancing; we were dry-humping to the music. As Emma Goldman noted, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

Moreover, has anyone noticed, or is it just me, that the nightlife has changed? Many cafe courtyards that were perfect for uniting non-smokers and smokers are silent. The non-smokers are at peace. But they’re not showing up because of bus farts, dive-bombing bugs, and solicitors — but which were perfectly acceptable to the smokers, who charmed others into creating a lively cafe culture.

Furthermore, it’s still illegal to smoke the legal flower, cannabis, which you bought from a licensed store, paid tax on and tipped the lovely staff for (Hi!) in the cafe courtyard. Now, the cafes hold solo laptop-ers and phone-starers, whose sad and bored faces are bluely lit as they sublimate scrolling for smoking. The problem, or rather, one of the problems, is what we’ll call the Billy factor.

There’s a poet in New Orleans, a city of poets, a poet’s poet, who smokes. How much does Billy smoke? Like a sausage factory in Bavaria, a sex workers’ convention in Vegas, a crematorium in Philly. How does a poet in the USA afford cigs? Rolls his own.

So why should you care if Billy, the NOLA poet, can smoke wherever he goes? Because Billy is the life of the party. He’s one of those people who is charisma incarnate. He knows everyone. He has an emotional I.Q. quotient that’s off the charts. If you want to be heard, Billy’s your man. And for Boots to be understood, hopefully, tolerated, well, can you put a price on pleasure like that?

The Pleasure of Patios

When visiting San Diego, smoking is allowed on the spendy cigar store patio (and worth it! Thank you, Medium readers; you’re beautiful!) However, the cafe where I purchased the $4.25 small coffee — plus tax and tip — enforced the strident no smoking/vaping law, even on the empty patio. However, I could stand on the sidewalk side of the decorative fence, next to a 6-lane road with buses, Hummers, and SUVs.

And guess what? The owner took off his apron and joined me with his cigarette as I sucked on my vaguely berry-perfumed vape! We chatted about the day’s beauty while leaning on the metal picket fence. And it was good. But it would have been better to sit down like civilized individuals in the friggin’ empty cafe tables.

Together, We’re Totally Fire!

You should know about the studies that demonstrate that loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. (Well, you would if you had any friends to share the news, wouldn’t you?) So, if you’re the rare individual who smokes one on social occasions, you’re still 14 to the good.

Look, I can see where places that we used to smoke, such as restaurants, airplanes, public lavatories (oh, wait — were we supposed to stop smoking in the restroom?), and possibly some surgeries seem, from today’s vantage point, positively barbaric. But it’s not a fun, Viking-funeral sort of barbarism, which would be hellacool.

The issue: If humans out in hurly-burly of daily life need to be propped up like delicate hothouse tomatoes whose spindly heights have exceeded their supports. Evidently, yes. Next question: What are we going to do about it?

I recently wrote a piece with the throwaway mention that Neanderthal DNA contributes to various traits that don’t serve the modern Homo sapiens well, including depression, alcoholism, nicotine addiction, and hay fever.

One of the incredible Boots readers (Hi Nick Struutinsky) was chirping about blaming the “Chainpiping Bastards.” Oh, I love this! I want to name my next band The Chainpiping Bastards if this Medium thing doesn’t pan out.

But we digress.

The point is that some of us are blessed/cursed with Neanderthal DNA (and please be gentle with the White Folks jokes because it’s surprisingly close to the truth, okay?), including the propensity to nicotine addiction.

Some are under incredible pressure. Some find smoking tobacco provides ease, inspiration, and pleasure, and they use the mental clarity and release in support of some damned demanding careers that don’t allow you to downward dog in your safe space.

Some medical professionals smoke rather than, I don’t know, suck down a blunt while working or giving in to instincts and engaging in manslaughter.

People are complex. Many artists, poor folks, and bright individuals have used tobacco — and walked away just fine.

I crafted an article for an upscale Epicurian cigar magazine on the former marine whose great pleasure was sitting on the veranda of his house and greeting neighbors as he smoked his several daily cigars. Now, I can’t say that smoking stoggies for decades after serving your country will help you live to be over a hundred years old. No, I can’t promise that. I can only say that, in this instance, it worked.

That’s the thing. The laws are so arbitrary. An ex-paramour, a lawyer, complained about the necessity of wisely implemented regulations if we’re to respect the rule of law.

He used the example of the law regarding reserving the front of bus seats for those who need them due to age, infirmity, pregnancy, or mobility, which is common sense and courtesy. Point: Those lacking courtesy and common sense won’t respect the law, reinforcing that rules can be selectively implemented or broken with impunity.

Your State of Being

We’re teaching people that the State and society are very concerned with you and what you’re doing in your private life. But only some of the time. All right. This is interesting. So, we care about smoking. But we can u-turn on a dime about the product and the repercussions it will have on your life. And like the sentencing regarding cocaine vs. crack, the laws tend to benefit those with greater access to resources, whether by conscious design or unintended accident.

Care is a good thing. But then we can infer, and it’s an interesting moral/legal argument, that once you take responsibility for a population by controlling their behavior, don’t you accept responsibility for their well-being?

Suppose the state demands fidelity to rules for your safety (bike helmets, safety belts) and perhaps more controversial controls (abortion, birth control, pain meds). In that case, the implementation of rules and laws implies a social contract where the state assumes some share of responsibility for well-being.

That pesky/challenging/expensive side of responsibility includes building housing, training/educational/business opportunities, and providing adequate safety nets for society’s most vulnerable populations.

Based on observation, research, and conversation with those in the clinical communities, perhaps it’s time to consider more carrots and fewer pokes with blunter sticks.

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

As pundits have noted, the problem with trading freedom for security is that people who do it seldom receive either. As a huge proponent of personal responsibility/freedom, understand: I, too, want to feel the wind in my hair, whizzing down the road on the back of a motorcycle, a jay dangling between my lips. I’d hate to give that up — (what laws? Already? Jeez!!!)

We’ve given up/thrown away/misplaced/pawned many of our freedoms. And while they may not have been technically free, they were hellafun — while they lasted.

Up in Smoke

I’ve stepped away from cigs, but I understand they can be a source of community, compensation, and care. Rather than shaming, criminalizing, and punishing behaviors that, yes, do have associated negative costs yet come with a payoff—delight, light, and pleasure. What if we encourage healthy coping strategies — by diminishing some stressors that we, as a society, can collectively impact?

We’re great at sharing things that work (meditation, exercise, interpersonal interactions, interpreting emotions). Now, let’s work on reducing the need for crutches as we dance together.

For other tasteful and non-controversial stories, may I suggest for your reading joy—