The inevitability of smoking

Having grown up in a time when anti-tobacco propaganda was everywhere and having seen the effects of the habit firsthand, I always wondered how anyone could make a conscious decision to start smoking. It just seemed natural to me that eventually all the addicts would die and then no one would do it anymore, kind of like what happened to fascists after World War II or swing dancers in 1998. And with all the measures that have booted smokers out of anyplace with four walls and a door, one would think that it would be well on it’s way out of style.

And it might be; I’m no statistician, nor do I know what a statistician does, really. But on a personal level, my opinions changed the day I got my first job in the food service industry. Back when I was a freshman in college, I worked in the deli at the nearby dining hall. I was told I got one half hour break a day unless I smoked, in which case I got to stand outside for ten minutes doing nothing whenever I wanted while all the dweeby little non-smokers covered. There is little that will make you want to pick up a cigarette faster than slopping questionable tuna salad, warm gelatinous mayonnaise and some crunchy paste that may or may not be hummus onto inedible wheat breads (or the unthinkably popular wrap, which is pretty much impossible to make) for six hours. I also threw up in the middle of preparing a nice girl’s sandwich once, but that’s not really relevant.

I lasted two months there working one day a week, which was regarded as quite an achievement because I guess most students quit after only a few hours of that kind of thing. But I had learned a valuable lesson. I wanted to be a smoker. And I probably would have become one right then and there if I had made more than thirty-five dollars a week at the time. I made a note of it, though, for when I would have enough disposable income to spend on something that would probably end up killing me twenty or thirty years down the road.

My thinking has only been further cemented by legislation that ostensibly aims to make smoking less appealing (I say “ostensibly” because it might be an ingenious plot enacted by the tobacco industry, but mostly because I just generally enjoy using the word “ostensibly”). What better excuse is there to escape from a stressful situation than nicotine addiction? Sometimes, you just need to take a break from work for a few minutes, or step outside a party, or just get away from other people for a while and take a breath. Cancer be damned; the world would be a lot healthier if we all stood outside once in a while for some quiet self-reflection.

Which leaves the anti-smoking lobby in a funny place. They’re fighting something that has been more or less rejected by everyone from teachers to politicians to the users themselves and they still can’t win. Even tobacco companies are running commercials about why you shouldn’t smoke—which I think is more endearingly self-deprecating than anything, like that girl who exaggerates her flaws in that sheepish sort of way whom everyone wants to meet and rescue in high school (“oh Philip Morris USA, if only you knew how beautiful you really are”). But as long as there are terrible jobs with bad pay, awful benefits and no incentive, there will be smokers leaning against walls and huddling underneath awnings to avoid the rain and the disapproving glances of people who think they know better. And plus, you still look really cool when you smoke, so there’s that.