As I have previously averred, she hadn't been a smoker since her early 50s, a fact she would deny but for recently rediscovered photographic evidence. But she had insisted on sharing a small room with my father whilst he belched out great clouds of smoke that made the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster look like a pleasant interlude, which of course it wasn't. Dad had even complained when she introduced a small air-conditioning device in order to assist her breathing when she was latterly diagnosed with rhinitis, and in spite of my remonstrations about Roy Castle's fate as a passive smoker, she laboured on in the only room in the house (other than my father's office) in which smoking was in any way tolerated.
Mum's anti-smoking stance grew into an article of faith and my several slithers back into smoking met with her severe disapproval and frequent repetitive lectures. The months after my father's death were spent in the furious and frantic cleaning of nicotine covered walls curtains, upholstery and ceilings, as she tried to erase the stains of decades and the cause of his extinction.
Tiresome though her lectures could prove given their frequency and predictable content, it's worth considering the possibility that their cumulative effect has hastened the end of my own love affair with tobacco.
Smoking relies heavily on our ability to deny the damage that we are inflicting upon ourselves both physically and mentally. It is, there can be no doubt, a profound form of self harm; a drug abuse for which society has less tolerance now than at any time in my life. Those who complain that recent legislation to prevent its occurrence in public places in some way infringes their civil rights remain either blissfully unaware or profoundly ignorant of the ambiguity this suggests with other forms of self-harm or drug abuse. Should we stand idly by whilst teenagers mutilate themselves with razors? Do we agree that any and everyone has the right to drink, smoke, snort or mainline themselves into a premature death and early grave without some societal intervention? Smoking sucks in every way and is predicated on the insane notion that because it can be legally purchased and is a legitimate source of revenue to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there should therefore be some individual choice regarding its consumption.
Here's a little reminder of the consequences of such a delusion:-
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health estimated that there were 4.83m premature deaths from smoking in 2000 - 2.41m in developing countries and 2.4m in industrialised countries. Over three-quarters of deaths among smokers worldwide - and in developing countries, 84% of deaths - were among men.
Cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death, killing 1.69m people, followed by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (970,000) and lung cancer (850,000).
But surely the tide has now turned with smokers in the west now feeling increasingly marginalised, victimised even, by the pressure to quit which now includes graphic images of the morbid consequences, printed on the packaging. Don't you believe it! The same researchers found that "Mortality as a result of smoking will rise substantially unless effective interventions and policies that curb and reduce smoking among men and prevent increases among women in these [developing] countries are implemented. Partly it's because they live in a growing population , so more people are smoking. But it also stems back to the actions of the tobacco companies, they are aggressively marketing their products to developing countries."
There's no doubt that where tobacco is cheap, so is life. Rehabilitation however is at hand - at least in 'developed' nations such as the UK - and in my next blog I will concern myself with the assistance available to the tobacco addict and move the discourse beyond the theoretical into the practical application and, it is to be hoped, toward recovery!
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