Demonizing cigarettes – is it about our health? Whose health?

I am a 40 year old smoker sociologist. The age implies that I grew up in a time where smoking was allowed everywhere and it was not considered the demon of all evil of this world. I could enjoy my drink and cigarette together everywhere I was, including trains and air planes. The fact that I am a smoker explains my interest in the ever growing one-sided smoking demonization campaign. And last but not least, the fact that I have studied sociology explains why I am critical in discourse concerning social problems and suggested solutions.

I have been surprised by the new photos of rotten internal organs and dying people that you can find on the pack of cigarettes these days. Those horrifying pictures and the captions that go like “Smoking is deadly stop now!” are accompanied by an increase in the cigarette tax. Would the tax money make it less damaging? Would the tax money the government collects make smoking less dangerous? If it would really be about health, and if cigarettes would indeed be a major source of evil in this world, wouldn’t it be understandable if it was banned and characterized illegal? This is the case with drugs for example. I do not necessarily adopt that view, I am only comparing policies and practices. The argument that an increase in tax would lead to less cigarette consumption is a dubious one and has a inescapable philosophical dimension. It seems that the value of health is equivalent to the value of money. Is it wrong to question these quotations and their meaning? Is it about our health or is it about something else? Having the current policy in mind I would dare to make an assumption. My assumption is that this demonization may be used by health insurance companies, that are slowly privatized everywhere, as an argument to deny medical services to smokers. An example of this idea is recognizable in Britain. There is a discussion about: “Obese people & smokers to be barred from routine operations in UK“(RT 2016). More assumptions are of course possible.

Another question that I have, is if this campaign refers to middle and low class income smokers of ordinary cigarettes, and not to the more privileged ones that smoke Havana cigars? Are cigars also seen as the evil of this world? And another question is, if the government is really preoccupied with our health, why is the focus on smoking? Why not on the non-food (food with ambiguous nutrition value) that all supermarkets sell? An acknowledgement of the fact that ordinary supermarket food is basically non-food, would be the increase in organic and biological product supermarkets and shops. It should be noted that these are more expensive than ordinary supermarkets. Is it wrong to assume that the financially less privileged eat non- food and smoke non-proper cigarettes? Is it wrong to assume that the government seems to care more about financial aspects of smoking than the health risks of the citizens as a whole? Is it wrong to assume that from this policy the lower income classes are affected? What kind of world is the one where life and money are of the same importance?

Comment by Candy White