A message from Joe Camel, or, a defense of smoking.
It’s readily apparent that smokers are now one of the most marginalized social groups in American society. Anti-smoking zealotry is such that smoking in bars is now illegal in many municipalities. The willingness of the political leaders who legislate these kinds of smoking bans (and the general public who elects them) to support the eradication of the American legacy of the hazy, smoke-shrouded barroom is indicative of the extraordinary repugnance many people have for smokers.
What stuns me is the seemingly moralizing fervor with which smokers are berated. Smoking just isn’t a health risk, smoking is downright EVIL, and we should do everything we can to stop people from smoking.
Ultimately, why do people smoke? The federal government has engaged in extensive campaigning since the 1970’s to make the public aware of health risks associated with tobacco use. No smoker with a modicum of brain activity isn’t fully aware of what can happen if you smoke. So why do people still do it? Well, why does anyone do anything voluntarily? Ostensibly because they enjoy doing it. Stunning, I know. Maybe a lot of people who smoke actually enjoy it. As Eric Cartman states prosaically in the “Smoke Stoppers” episode of the animated series South Park, “Smoking is something that brings a lot of people a little bit of joy and happiness…”
Frankly, everyone has their vice, whether it be smoking, drinking, gambling, eating shitty food, watching mind-numbing drivel on television, or blowing cash on meaningless crap you don’t need at the mall. And yet you don’t see anyone fighting to have Sex And The City taken off the air. Hmm.
No one forces you to smoke. It’s a choice, just like a lot of things in life. If someone enjoys a cigarette after a good meal, good sex, or a shitty day at work, why would you begrudge them that? More importantly, be aware that to attach a moral value judgment to whether or not someone smokes is asinine and intellectually feeble. Let it go. Leave the smokers alone, and stop moralizing. Still can’t get that bur of indignation and judgment out from beneath your saddle of righteousness? Here, have a cigarette. It’ll calm you down.
