Smell This Law
I have been reading with great interest the posts over at The Smoking Section concerning Bill 112, the ban on smoking in public restaurants, bars, pubs, and what have you. Its formal enforcement began May 31 midnight, marking the first concentrated effort in the history of mankind to get the Frenchman to butt out his cigarette (oh, those wannabe bans in France don’t count). My interest in this law goes back a few of years when cities and towns across my home province of Ontario began tabling similar legislation to curb the unruly smokers’ behaviour. Smokers are a dangerous bunch—looking at their filth-encrusted hair (w/ snakes) and gnarled teeth you get the disquieting sense that they could snap at any moment, even in the times when they get their fix on schedule. The cumulative effects of these smoking bans might not be known for another thirty years, but the damage to the smoker’s psyche is done. They are filth, scum, flaneurs, reprobates who probably have long hair and who partake in extramarital coitus. But now we’ve made them angry, and while we’re all fussing over our health and spending our days at the gym and our nights marinating in our post-industrial existential torment, smokers are sitting on fire escapes and plotting our bourgeois demise.
My defining moment on this issue took place on a cool evening in Ottawa; my home town, The Town That Fun Forgot, and perhaps the world’s Capital for hamhanded nanny-statism (they banned street hockey, e.g.). My persistent, delusional good thoughts about Ottawa were shattered once and for all, as if struck by a hammerblow, on this one incident. A friend, Matt, and I were on a windy patio in the Byward Market, the kind that is partially roofed under a white tarpaulin with little slits for the windows. It was otherwise a nice evening, cool and dry, but the wind shook the plastic hard all night, the little beer-logo flags flapping helplessly. That wind kept most of the crowd inside at the bar or the fireplace. The effect was such that an occasional good gust would catch the tarp at an angle that would cause a concentrated blast of air to hit the patio with a great reverberation, sending coasters flying and loose shirt fabric sticking to sides of faces. We didn’t like it, but Matt wanted a smoke so out we went, backs turned to the open air. Matt is a no-nonsense guy, and he is perhaps the most popular of all my friends. He carries himself with a certain swagger, a persistent sureness of foot in which you see glimpses of yourself during your finest moments, and with it an instinctual perception of the sheer rightness of his manner. He has the right jokes, the great politesse, and the endearing loutishness. You feel like you are always in his hand, and that you love being there. He had his back turned to the wind and was talking to people I didn’t know. Entertaining them, probably. It was a short blonde woman and her boyfriend. An unlit cigarette dangled from his hand; a break in the conversation allowed him the idea to light it. He turned his back to the wind and, not having had a lighter handy since he’d left his white Zippo on the table in a pool hall, he lit a match, and before he could lift it the flame caught a gust of wind and extinguished. He excused himself and took a step back towards the door, opening it and wedging his foot in. He leaned inside to light his smoke, got it lit, and without any warning a small white hand yanked the cigarette from his lips. Matt looked to his left; there stood a member of Ontario’s finest, an OPP officer who saw it all happen. She promptly presented Matt with a $200+ fine and a stern lecture about the nature of “zero-tolerance”. We wandered back inside to soak ourselves in ale, our evening ruined. Justice yet again served within the borders of Ontario. Great to be home.
Police will snatch many more cigarettes out of mouths in the months to come. The law has told them that is what they must do, and enforcment is all they know. The legislative bodies-that-be will continue to impose standards of private, consensual behaviour under the banner of “zero-tolerance”, and will give the rank-and-file their orders. These standards will not only serve a combination of pragmatic, bureaucratic, partisan, ‘classist’, and political aims, but will represent a successful experiment in shaping the public illusion of consensus. For not only have the parameters of the debate been set by the elites, the public has filled its role perfectly as willing agents of mass hysteria. Smokers are just backlog inventory in the great socio-political warehouse, being clandestinely dumped into the sea, to uproarious cheers.
You can get a sense of the one-sidedness of the debates by how often you hear the words: morality, civil liberties, rights, law of the land, ethics, government intrusion, consensus, private property. Not very often. You are more likely to hear stories of people who hate coming home smelling like smoke, cries of smoking being one of the major killers and a burden on the health-care system, citing of lung cancer rates, heart disease rates, excoriations of smoking as a “useless habit“, and the loaded phrase “passive smoking”. When did this tireless vitriol towards smoking suddenly jump into the front seat of the public consciousness? Did people feel this way about smoking thirty years ago? Cigarettes haven’t changed much since then, but the opinions of the non-smoker certainly have.
(To blatantly stoke fears: if you’ll accept the assumption that smoking bans were unthinkable thirty years ago, what will they propose thirty years from now? A return to Prohibition [only not called that, obvs.]? A tax levied on flu carriers? Mandatory blood donation? Your liver to the State? However slippery the slope may be, the possibilities cannot be dismissed out of hand. Thirty years ago you could smoke at your seat in an airplane. Today, they’re banning peanut butter in elementary schools.)
In any case, one must understand the stakes of this ban. It is more than a formality, or something that was bound to happen anyway. And it is more than a simple outlawing of a dangerous behaviour. It is nothing short of a governmental revocation of a right. That right is for people to engage in a specific, consensual activity on private property, which happens to be harmful, and harmful to a degree that is unknown. That is the nut of it. Imagine the government held a snap referendum on that question, using that exact terminology, without telling you they were talking about smoking. Which way would you be more likely to vote?
Look. I won’t pretend like the anti-smokers don’t have valid points about smoking. It is harmful, it costs money, and it can make bars and restaurant decidedly unpleasant. Who could question the facts? Whatever the controversy over second-hand smoke, the best the smokers can hope for is a draw. Inhaling smoke can’t be any better for your lungs. And the best part of the trick is… it’s so easy! Just ban it! Few, if anybody, will protest, and the savings—of life and budget—will be vast and shared by all. Even better, the smoking ban has the auspicious trait of being easily enforceable. Laws aren’t worth a thing if they can’t be enforced, right? Well, this is no such law. Threaten huge fines and plant a few rat finks in casual clothes to keep ‘em scared, and bar owners will snuff patrons’ cigarettes out on their own tongues if they have to.
The laity has already spoken: they don’t like being smoked upon. Fine. Most people don’t. The first question becomes, then, under what circumstances must you permit yourself to be smoked upon? Where twenty, thirty years ago the answer might have ranged from “not in my home” to “nowhere” to “anywhere”, the answer nowadays is a definitive “nowhere.” Not a single cloud of smoke should climb into another’s lungs without consent, is the pervading popular view. The liberal counter-argument is simple: if one doesn’t ever want this outcome, he can stay home, or hang out in a place that doesn’t allow smoking. And those who are willing to be smoked upon can go to a place that allows the smoking-on of people. By showing up in a smoke-friendly place, you grant consent to be smoked upon. Too simple?
In a sense, yes. See any smoke-free bars around? There aren’t any. I don’t know about Montreal, but Toronto has tried a few times in the distant past to open non-smoking bars, and failed. One might say the demand for non-smoking bars cannot support a market in these places. This is clearly not an issue people are particularly militant about if they pack the bars every weekend. At most the ban represents an expression of a preference on the part of non-smokers, and even some smokers. A large group of people would rather not be smoked upon, if they had the choice between “smoke on me” and “don’t smoke on me”. This is a perfectly legitimate preference, and I don’t doubt it represents a majority of the popular opinion, incl. among smokers. They have another choice, though, which is “go to bar” or “don’t go to bar”. Theoretically, they could have a third choice too: “go to non-smoking bar”. If they existed. That is, if people were willing to go to them. Those last two don’t involve the government stepping in and passing laws. That is the liberal argument. It makes a lot of sense to me, but it’s true that the “invisible hand” isn’t everything. We allow regulation of industry where there is a clear responsibility for the government to do so. How often do these regulations interfere with the rights of the common citizen? There are also questions of shared values, of protection from “tyranny of the majority”, and of morality. These are questions that are not only unanswered, but unconsidered.
The anti-smokers’ ace-in-the-hole, the trump card, the bomb, is workers rights. They slam it on the table like the winning domino. The real reason for this ban, you see, is not about their own preferences, but rather that they are deeply concerned about the health of Juan the Line Cook who has to toil all day in that awful smoke. This is the slam-dunk sales pitch, and this is how the law was packaged and sold. It is cotton candy, to get you in the door. Melts in your mouth.
If I could quote Vila, from a Metroblog comment:
“As for the health and safety of bar staff, I feel compelled to point out that service industry workers, as non-unionized employees, make less than the minimum wage; receive no pension benefits or health insurance; and deal with the threat of alcohol-induced violence every time they go to work. Although I have no doubt that some would prefer to work in a smoke-free environment, you’ll forgive me for being somewhat skeptical about ‘pro-worker’ arguments.”
Hear, hear. And while I’m at it, raise your hand if you’re pro-smoking-ban because you think provincial health care spending is just gettin’ crraaaaaaazy these days? Anybody?
Perhaps the saddest spectacle of our times is the image of a dozen or so smokers huddled exactly five metres away from the entrance of a building, behind a few signposts or a cordoned-off “safe zone” strung up with cheap yellow rope. My office building has legislated this bit of segregation as a rule of their property. We are willing to live in the worst conditions of air quality brought on by a century of industrial pollution, but we cannot abide a three-second traipse through a thin haze of tobacco smoke. We inhale car exhaust and sulphur dioxide and all kinds of nasty particles all day. Can we hold our breath for a second? No, that won’t work. Someone will come up with a reason for why they can’t do this. It causes them an allergic reaction, perhaps, or it blinds them temporarily, or they feel a deep revulsion that starts in their soul and draws life from every cell in their body, causing them to shrivel into a dessicated husk which is only alleviated by the the sweet, life-giving fresh air they gasp for on the other side. And that means the government needs to step in. All around us we see the spectres of infection, and we want them to be legislated away. I can only assume that the citizens of my country have gone crazy.
Footnote: To be fair, I have no special love for smoking or smokers. Stepping into the shower and smelling the smoke being steamed out of my hair is not a preferred morning ritual. Furthermore, the habit is romanticized a little too much as some kind of neo-bohemian tonic of the spirit, a philosopher’s stone and aprhodesiac all in one. It feels unnecessary. I’m reminded of the cannabis activists who steep their arguments in a kind of nature-based pseudo-philosophy, extolling the cannabis plant as a great giver of life and industry, invoking George Washington and the early agrarians, and barely stopping short of drawing a bold line between Man and Gaea herself. Is it disingenuous to argue that you like smoking a bowl every now and again, because it makes you fly? Nothing against vice, but call it what it is. It feels good and it calms your nerves, and gives you a pleasure to look forward to, sometimes, and that’s why you smoke and that’s all the reason you need.
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(8 comments)
“But now we’ve made them angry, and while we’re all fussing over our health and spending our days at the gym and our nights marinating in our post-industrial existential torment, smokers are sitting on fire escapes and plotting our bourgeois demise.”
So true!
Great post! It expresses much of my thoughts on the matter better than I could have written myself. Let’s hope this is not the first of many prohibitions.
Dick: come up for a visit, my man. Or I, there. Either way. It has been too long.
Frank: good to find support amongst a few of the blogging set. Us anti-ban people could use some. Great blog(s), BTW. I’ve never been to Chi. but am dying for an excuse.
That is a capital idea. I’m in need of a summertime excursion.
Well I’m still recovering in shock from the behaviour of that OPP officer. It’s not prohibition at that point, it’s downright rude! I am horrified. A friend of mine recently came back from Switzerland and pointed out that the people are very eco-conscious, energy-wastage-conscious, the air is beautifully clear and *everybody* and their grandmother smokes. Although I am happy to no longer go home from a club or bar stinking like an well-used ashtray, I cannot help but wonder if we are not tackling the wrong thing. We are prohibiting vice instead of encouraging better ecological habits. And I do wonder, what will be next?
I don’t know about Montreal, but Toronto has tried a few times in the distant past to open non-smoking bars, and failed.
Have you been to Hogtown in a while? The best a smoker can hope for is a patio, and even that isn’t readily available. If the awning is down, then the smoking is not allowed to happen. Bars themselves have been smoke-free for quite a while.
There are many medicinal benefits of marijuana, which some medical doctors say alleviates the pain and nausea associated with AIDS, cancer, cancer treatment, and other diseases. I was recently in a serious car accident, in which I was hit by a drunk driver. I broke 6 ribs, my neck, and several vertebrae in my back. I was in the hospital for the last 2 months, and in rehabilitation 6 months since. I have been prescribed medication for my chronic pain, but have stopped taking it after I noticed I was becoming addicted to pain killers. My doctor recommended the use of cannabis as an alternative to prescription drugs, and issued a medical marijuana card (I live in California; where it’s legal to grow a few plants). I decided to purchase a grow box using hydroponics, for growing indoors, inside instead of outside; as it would be the easiest way to quickly get my garden producing the natural cocktail I require, and to make it through the day. My pain is almost in-imaginable. After 2 months I now have some beautiful plants awaiting harvest, and look forward to a natural way of relieving my pain. It’s cheaper, and for me more effective. I know marijuana is illegal in most of the country, but for me it is a godsend. I really believe that it should be legalized as an alternative medicine for those in need. Just my 2 cents…
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