Future of cigarettes

As an activist author I must concede that, at the very practical outset, cigarettes are here to stay. Cigarettes are here to dawn the shelves of shopping outlets, here to consume people to their deaths, here to neurologically haunt people, here to force young naive minds into pitiful life-long addiction, and are here to painfully numb the already weak and fragile to terrible disease-stricken deaths.

But, really, what does the way going forward look like?

To answer that question, let me share my experience as an author writing about this subject over the past three months. My intended objective has been that researching and raising awareness about the ills of a topic as horrendous as cigarette smoking would, in turn, give me the motivation to quit smoking. I have both good and bad news: While I have had all the motivation, I still haven't been able to entirely quit the habit. I am still tempted to light up "the one extra smoke" at a college party or when I'm comfortably unwinding with my clique on a relaxed Friday night. I have largely resisted the urges; over the past 90 days, I have learnt how terrible this habit can be and how little the government can pragmatically do to prevent people from taking on the habit. It is a matter of free unprovoked individual choice. And my choices have not always been the right ones.

The paradox remains: Despite all efforts to disincentivize people---labeling tobacco products, ban on smoking advertisements, increasing taxes to maximum rates, ban on smoking in public (partly), etc---people are still undeterred.

Some soul-searching needs to be done at this point: Where do we want to, philosophically, go as a society? Do we want evils to wander freely and potentially hijack the lives of your young ones? Or how much further can intervention go beyond which the signs of authoritarianism overshadow those of liberty and freedom?

In my previous post on this very blog, I emotionally urged a blanket ban on all forms of tobacco products. Some of my friends sympathized with such arguments but very appropriately argued that those adverse initiatives would never see the end of the tunnel. Such radical governance (even if for the good of the people) undermine the value systems of a democracy. Let me briefly describe how;

I spent part of my Thanksgiving in the United Arab Emirates, just a few days ago. The Emirates flight that I had boarded had bold imprints: "Smoking tobacco is banned in the UAE." To confirm, I saw the same signage plastered over the walls of wherever I went to in Dubai. Even though that is the dream in terms of where I'd like to see the tobacco industry go, it is a freedom-stifling form of governance. I prefer the luxury of choice and free will that I have in the United States of America over the authoritarian diktats of the Sheikhs of the oil-world.

So if cigarette smoking ultimately boils down to a matter of choice, it is that what we must target if we are to curb the habit en masse. If the demand dries up, basic economics teaches us that so will the supply. Efforts to influence, by the means considered legal in a democracy, people to make better informed choices must continue. More so, the disincentives apparatus currently in place should remain as it is, and if possible tightened where loose.

But as I've realized over the past three months, what is most important is influencing ones own self. Take care of yourself, and so will the world of itself. As an educated citizen, I know the pros and cons of the subject, yet I choose to indulge. Until I clean the dirt from my own heart, my telling other people to clean the dirt from their own will remain ineffective. 

Can we ban cigarettes altogether?

I discovered, this semester, who my favorite professor is after more than two years in college. He is a professor of Environmental History at the University of Maryland. Over the course of the previous two months, he has forced me to think beyond what I previously thought to be my intellectual limitations. Every class is a gripping and intellectual roller-coaster ride; and I admire him.

But he said something very peculiar the other day that I am now analyzing, probably, beyond his intended meaning. He said, "cigarette smoking is a choice. Smokers choose to kill themselves." Somehow, I just could not then, and cannot now, agree with his gross generalization of the problem. According to me, choosing to smoke the first cigarette may be, indeed, a matter of choice. OK, let's say smoking the first few cigarettes can be still considered a matter of choice. But beyond that, it becomes an addiction. As I previously examined in my posts, the marginal cigarette -- or the one extra smoke -- becomes very difficult to not indulge in.

So, initially, choosing to smoke is a choice -- and it could be a choice out of many reasons. But beyond that it is nicotine and addiction; and addiction is by no means a choice. A very horrible, but true,  analogy should bring home the point: One can choose to steal for the first few times. But one does not get chemically addicted to stealing. Even though it may seem the easy way out that robbers may continue to resort to, if someone chooses to adopt a life of work and labor instead, it is humanely possible for the person to make that transition. In the case of tobacco, what can you do when your mind pangs the rest of your body in restlessness until you have the "one extra smoke?"

Which brings me to my thesis-question: Should cigarettes be banned from markets? The hazards are apparent and there is evidence that quitting the habit is not an issue of morality but an issue of chemically-induced addiction. From this point on, the scientific community should establish and promote evidence for the same. If sound evidence exists, which I'm presuming can be established, politicians should make efforts to ban tobacco products from the shelves of the 7-Elevens, CVS' and so on.

I advocated for such a harsh position after hearing the story of my friend's aunt from Salisbury, Maryland. Elena's [name changed] aunt had an operation over the summer and had many health problems, including bronchitis, that surfaced during that time. What should her own response to her problems have been? Well, if she wants to get any better (considering the amount of tobacco she has smoked over many years, the damage she has inflicted on her body is irreversible), she should quit the habit, right? But Elena told me otherwise. She told me that her aunt just cannot give up her "one extra smoke" and continues to puff away a packet of cigarettes a day. I don't feel mad at her aunt, as Elena naturally felt. In fact, I can only sympathize with the poor lady. What reason would abandon a person on his or her deathbed? The level of addiction shrouds reason, logic and, unfortunately, even common sense.

My initial position on the issue had been that the government ought to impose certain incentives that would reduce the consumption level. The suggested incentives were as follows: impose tax rates that reach tax-ceilings, ban smoking in public areas and heavily penalize celebrities found smoking. Due to the practical limitations of what the government can and cannot do, it seemed unfeasible to impose a blanket ban on the product. I hope the government can really implement those incentives. It will really be an immense help to society. Further, I hope, I hope with all my might, that the government pull a miracle off and somehow ban tobacco products entirely without jeopardizing the freedom of the people or the values of the constitution.

How to Quit Smoking: Podcast with Ellen

Maryland Junior Ellen [name withheld on request] shares why she started smoking and genuine advice on how to quit!

Web 2.0 and Cigarettes

Trillions of lines of software "code" and leaves of tobacco folded in pieces of paper that kill people seem to me as the most unlikely allies.

But Web 2.0 and cigarettes are connected, intrinsically, to each other. How? It starts with acknowledgment of the fact that the internet is one of the most powerful tools accessed by billions of human beings today. The transformation of the internet, from one that served very functional and technical purposes in yesterday-decades, to the personalized, social-network-based interactive form (Web 2.0) it has taken today, has made it an integral part of human society. Today, humans spend more time on the internet for leisure, work, information-gathering and entertainment, than ever before.

This extreme dependence has enabled the internet, more so the content floating on the internet, to influence our lives to a great extent. Like it has in most other spheres of human activity, the internet has changed our perception of cigarette smoking.

Coincidence?
The advent of Web 2.0 and the decline of the image of smoking have coincidental correlations. What do I mean by the decline of the image of smoking? Today, for certain, smoking is, across every culture and society, labeled and considered a bad activity to indulge in. In previous decades, a smoker was considered cool and classy (refer to the TV show Madmen which depicts the 1960s tobacco-addict American society.)  That has changed; and the internet has had a big role in inducing that change.

But a question begs to be asked: While this transformation of how society perceives smoking has been gradual and a decades'-long phenomenon, the advent of Web 2.0 began only a little more than a decade ago. How can there be a casual correlation between the two?

Social Effects
For all its merits and demerits, Web 2.0 has had one seismic effect: It has given a voice to every human being that can be echoed across every corridor of society. One no longer needs to be a prominent personality to air his or her views via the traditional mediums of newspaper, television and/or book-authorship.

It will be fair to say that, between the 1970s and 1990s, most understood the negative implications of smoking cigarettes, but were not aware of the scale at which everybody else in society understood this fact. Newspaper columns, television debates and the publishing of books have been mostly reserved for the elite, who are usually unable to reflect the true intent and thinking of the common folk at large.

With the prominence of Web 2.0, however, common people have had the chance to air their views. And air their views they have (in the millions and billions): On blogs, Facebook statuses, emails, twitter feeds, youtube videos, vimeos, podcasts, and so on. Now everybody knows that everybody knows cigarette smoking is a bad habit -- there is no uncertainty around this fact. The internet has been largely responsible for creating this worldwide consensus.

For instance look at this heart-wrenching blog created by the family members of a deceased smoker, from St. Petersburg, Russia. WHY QUIT. Without the internet, an Indian national living in the United States of America would have likely never been able to read this Russian story. Honestly, it has gone as far as to inspire me to quit smoking. Without the internet, I'm not sure I could trust traditional media to portray Bryan's story to me halfway across the world (and rightly so, there are logistical and time limitations).

Further, look at this informative video on the kind of treacherous effect that 400 cigarettes can have on the human body.  

This is really what the Web has enabled humans to do. A researcher in Japan has produced a video that is now being seen by upwards of 400,000 people in America, Czech Republic and other parts of the world (as noted from the stats page of the video). Similarly, search for simply "cigarette smoking" on Youtube (not even a biased keyword like "bad effects of cigarette smoking") and you will see a barrage of videos made by other fellow human beings from random corners of the world sharing their stories and telling a viewer why and how cigarette smoking is horrible.

Why just restrict to videos and blogs, look at Twitter as well. Twitter, I believe, is the best gauge of the common-man's opinion. So, go to Twitter and just search for the word "cigarettes" and see what common people have to say about the habit of smoking. The likelihood that a seemingly rational person would tweet glorifying the act of cigarette smoking is unsurprisingly very low. There are thousands of tweets, in fact, denouncing cigarette smoking. Look at the tweets I found just 7 minutes ago:

And then, of course, there are countless email exchanged between friends and family members that deride smoking. I remember sharing with my parents how I started smoking lightly, off-late, and my entire family gently pounced on me. I received so many encouraging emails from everyone on how and why it is important to quit smoking. And that has really helped. I know that there are folks who care for me and that in itself provides motivation needed to quit the habit.

Yes, trillions of lines of software "code" and leaves of tobacco folded in pieces of paper that kill people are, indeed, the most unlikely allies, but allies nonetheless.. 

Prevalent Rhetoric

The string of graphic ads released by CBS, as shown in the video above, summarizes the nature of anti-smoking rhetoric that does the rounds via public broadcasting channels. But here's the paradox, up front: there is enough convincing and dramatized (and correctly so) information in the general media, in terms of anti-smoking advertisements, non-profit group messages, documentaries, news columns, etc; yet, 20% of all Americans choose to smoke -- choose to dig their own graves, one cigarette packet at a time (at $7, that's top dollar).

In the quest to understand this madman mentality, it will be interesting to look at some of the present day media campaigns that have successfully created a negative narrative around smoking. What has made these campaigns so successful? Success notwithstanding, what has been the missing X factor that has prevented them from being a cent percent successful?

At the outset, the very act of labeling on cigarette packets carries powerful rhetoric force. It appeals to both logic and emotion (logos and pathos, predominantly the former). For instance, inscriptions in bold such as "Surgeon's warning: Smoking kills," or "SMOKERS DIE YOUNGER" act as tremendous repellents to potential consumers. I was at the Mumbai airport three weeks ago, and cartons of 200 Benson & Hedges cigarettes each were being sold for only $11 at the duty free store. Had it not been for the strongly worded labels, I would have probably succumbed to the temptation of smoking those cigarettes (as well as perhaps the low prices).

On another tangent, in one of the initial scenes of the 2002 New Zealand classic "The Whale Rider," a bunch of older women are shown sitting playing bridge on a dining table, smoking cigarettes. The young protagonist, barely 10 years old, walks in and reprimands her seniors for smoking. "Maori women have got to stop smoking," she fusses, "it's going to kill you all." 

The references to both the "Mumbai aiport" and the "Whale Rider" have an implicit connotation. In that the anti-tobacco rhetoric is not only prevalent in places like New York State (where smoking rates are lowest in the country), Maryland, or somewhere in Europe, but is "global" in every sense. People all over the world have understood that smoking is necessarily a "bad" activity. Whether they avoid the "bad" habit is another issue, but on the whole, the level of awareness speaks volumes for the coordinated effort to reach out to people world over.

The theme of these campaigns is mostly similar: graphic visuals, horrific stories, verified facts and earnest morals. In particular, the use of disturbing imagery is common and, as is apparent from the reaction of people, effective. In fact, the director of the Center for Disease Control recently launched a nation-wide $54 million dollar ad campaign to propagate disturbingly true visuals of ex-smokers destroyed lives (which was a result of smoking), as part of an anti-smoking rhetoric. The campaigns are so disgusting that they'll probably top "jeez-i'm-grossed-out" rankings (if such indexes existed). When Children’s rights and educationists called this move a badly judged one, stressing that the visuals negatively harmed the psyche of young minds, the Director of CDC, Thomas Friedan, vehemently defended himself. “That is exactly the point,” he emphasized, “I think it is important young people below the age of fifteen be exposed to material such as this; after all, nine in ten smokers begin smoking during their teens.” Even though I was all "jeez-i'm-grossed-out" at the ads, I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Friedan.  Good job, Director.

Ethos, Logos and Pathos

The success of anti-smoking campaigns depends on the deployment of all the above rhetorical strategies in some combination or the other. "Suffer" is perhaps the key element: emotions (who wants to suffer?), logic (really, who wants to suffer?) and regard for reputation (when your favorite actor tells you not to smoke because you may suffer, you might actually fancy not smoking).

Why not completely successful?
Maybe, it is the imperfect nature of this world -- outliers and exceptions will always exist. Nothing will ever be 100% correct or 100% pure. Hoping that a product -- as destructive as cigarettes -- is eradicated completely off the face of  this Earth, is rather too idealistic.

Cigarette Smoking is Injurious

Cigarette smoking, apart from its core service of the ingestion of tobacco, presents a few subtle and implicit conundrums at the societal scale. Numerous studies have been undertaken since the second half of the 20th century that consistently conclude that tobacco consumed in most addictive forms is harmful to the human body. This evidence is not only confined to the results of laboratory-based studies, but can be apparent to us through the world around us (if we choose to open our eyes). We all know someone, or at least someone who knows someone, who has died as the result of cigarette smoking. From various kinds of cancers, to early death, asthma, bronchitis, fatigue, loss of hair, (even loss of sperm count for men, and a number of reproductive implications for women), medical records across geographies and time scales have erased all doubt: Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.

Why do we still smoke? Generation after generation? Why do we lavishly (and how!) pave the road to our own grave?

I have a disclosure to make: I started smoking this summer and loved the experience. At the same time, I also know its horrible. I’ve felt fatigued and unhealthy. And I want to quit already — before it becomes a serious addiction. I’ve read so much about the harmful effects; and my genetics don’t support me either (my grandparents and father are all patients of asthma).

My situation confuses me. I’m educated. And most of things I’ve done have been sensible demonstrating constructive use of resources and time. Even someone like me, relatively not as addicted and, as I would like to believe, a person of reason, while at a 7 Eleven, will try to convince my own-self why I should buy that pack of potentially ill-fated Marlboros: from “only this one last time,” “oh come on, big deal, the scientific evidence is all a damned hoax,” to something as absurd and illogical as “I’m a ghost rider and I don’t fear death.” (That, luckily, has not been my chosen line of reasoning for more than one occasion).

Only now, after falling prey myself, can I empathize with those who have been sucked into the quicksand of addiction. Before I tried a few myself, I was heavily judgmental about smokers. It seemed like a losing proposition only madmen (and women) would risk indulging in.

That was a micro perspective. Zoom out, and you’ll see millions of such perspectives aggregating into the macro debate. Smokers argue that it is their choice to do what they want and that a governing institution cannot impose itself on them, while the other side touts for the savings in health costs, and all the consequential benefits to the community at-large that flow as a result.

Look at our own campus. The University of Maryland has banned all smoking activity on campus. My smoker friends are outraged. Non-smokers don’t really care (but, hey, second-hand smoke is also a big deal they’ll be spared of). To be honest, that Anand somewhere inside me is elated. I won’t feel tempted to indulge every time I see someone lighting up.

In conclusion, the debate around cigarette smoking is a very intriguing societal issue. Even though the negative effects are so apparent — so much so that all cigarette packets come with dire warnings addressed to potential consumers — tobacco companies netted about $35 billion in annual profits globally (out of $350 billion of annual revenue) in 2010. That’s a lot of money, folks. It’ll be interesting to go over the minute facets of this issue, and see why people get possessed with a killing addiction — even though most of them, sane people, know its ‘bad’ in every sense. Our question for the day (rather, semester): Why do you do something — repeatedly — that is bad for you?

PS. Initially, I thought about writing on “Immigration and Entrepreneurship” as my theme; now I think this endeavor is more appropriate given the audience, the college setting, and that inspiration I need myself to come out of this poorly judged habit.