Supporting the Smoker
BY GRACE PORTALANCE
Defending cigarette smoking in today’s world yields little sympathy. Given that tobacco is an admittedly unhealthy and addictive substance, finding pro-tobacco advocates is relatively rare—and for good reason. Smoking has been linked to many terrible diseases, and people generally do not support habits that are detrimental to health. Despite this, I have found that people judge the smoker more than the habit itself. Many see the act of smoking itself as intolerable and therefore the smoker as socially unacceptable. There is a judgment that is aimed towards cigarette smokers that largely does not exist towards smoking cigars, drinking alcohol, or ingesting marijuana. These differences are reminiscent of the government’s disparate treatment of powder cocaine versus crack: It isn’t as much about health as it’s about class— the government simply doesn’t like the group that is associated with the latter substance.
On that idea I would argue that in terms of a societal impact—as in how the behaviors of others directly affect you—what others smoke has minimal effect on you compared to other vices. Yet the judgment remains.
Let’s compare smoking to something present without stigma in the college lifestyle: binge drinking.
Alcoholism and alcohol-related diseases are serious concerns: one out of every 10 deaths of people between the ages of 20 and 64 is alcohol related. The danger to oneself aside, secondhand smoking issues pale in comparison to the injuries, both to one’s self and others, that alcohol causes. I have never heard of someone who crashed a car into an innocent person due to tobacco use. Nobody has ever been a perpetrator or victim of sexual assault when tobacco was an aiding factor. On a day-to-day basis, is binge drinking not more likely to cause harm to those around you than a cigarette?
The judgment smokers face is largely attributable to the anti-smoking campaign of the late 20th century. One would be hard pressed to find an equally influential campaign in American history. While covering a broad range of social, economic, and political angles, the campaign’s most effective and poignant arguments were those aimed at the popularity, appearance, or desirability of smokers. While statistics on lung are sexy in their own right, saying that kissing a smoker is “like licking an ashtray” is much more effective in creating shame and disgust. It is that shame and disgust that is so pertinent to this discussion—just as in the crusade against obesity, shame isn’t the way to improve someone’s health, support is.
What I am trying to say is that tobacco isn’t good for you, but the crusade against it and judgment for it is completely unfounded while many dangerous habits slide under the radar.
This issue is directly related to class. 28 percent of people below the poverty line smoke, while only 17 percent above it use tobacco. Even more stratifying is the difference education makes. Twenty-five percent of adults who did not graduate from high school smoke, compared to just nine percent of those who complete a college education. Interestingly, drinking behaviors have an opposite pattern: Though less easily categorized, the higher one’s income, the more likely he or she is to be at least a moderate drinker. Statistically speaking, on a campus like ours, students likely grew up in a situation where casual drinking was present and normal in their homes while smoking was a behavior done by the “other”. Even something as close in chemical makeup as a cigar is seen with vastly different connotations. The indulgent image of a wealthy man in a suit smoking an expensive cigar is classy, even professional. However, you won’t see an East Coast frat boy smoking a cigarette in his high school graduation Facebook profile picture. Cigars are celebratory, symptoms of wealth, while cigarettes are a symptom of the underclass. So, while encouraging people to quit smoking as a health-conscious decision is a public health must, we need to consider if our looking down upon smoking is truly for the good of the smoker or a symptom of our perception of class differences.
We have been taught that smoking is a decision made by stupid, undesirable people, and while it is true that smoking is terrible for one’s health it is one of many, many vices that are detrimental to health that exist in the world. The difference is, smoking has become a vice of the lower classes and therefore is subject to a paternalistic attitude. Consider the reaction smokers get—usually something along the lines of “don’t you know that’s bad for you?” While it is more than likely that smokers are equally aware of risks as non-smokers, those who do not smoke and judge others for it create a divide between those enlightened and those in the dark.
Smoking is bad—but so are a lot of things. On which vice we choose to lay our judgment and contempt tells a lot about how we view class differences in our society, and we must not use smoking as a vessel for these classist attitudes.