The UK has now overtaken Spain in the breadth and enforcement of banning tobacco use in public. Is this an infringement of our civil liberties? Or the best move yet in the battle against nicotine addiction? Big Mouth is bound to know.
Well of course I know. You do realise I am the font-of-all knowledge, don’t you? I am here ready and waiting to give the Spanish government a bit of helpful advice. You should have come and asked me earlier: I’m always right.
Colours to the mast. I loath smoking. Yes, it’s unhealthy, but that’s not the worst of it. Smoking is foul; the ash, the litter, the stains, the stink. Man, it stinks: do smokers know that they reek? I hate being stuck somewhere while people spew clouds of dirt from their mouths and nostrils; the headache and dry throat a night in a fogged up bar brings; the nauseous smell in my clothes, on my skin. Smoking doesn’t just make you sick; it is sick. It’s grotesque; it's foul; it's revolting. I loath smoking.
This is not an acceptable viewpoint. In Britain, when someone mutters, “You don’t mind,” as a statement while they light up, most non-smokers are too polite to say, “Yes, I bloody do, put the damn thing out!” They know some will get aggressive, snarling and sneering in their attempt to defend their addiction. In Spain, though, it’s quite the other way. Smoking is so entirely acceptable the question isn’t asked; it is seen as a mildly self-indulgent bad habit of clean living people, not much worse than drinking coffee. It is utterly standard, utterly unsurprising; you cannot graduate from puberty without taking it up; it is even, God help us, still seen as sexy. Smoking is really as sexy as aids, as clean living as copraphilia.
But I also know Governments’ have a love/hate relationship with the evil weed. Roughly:
Big Taxes, Good vs. Health-lobby Hassle, Bad;
Big Business, Good, vs. Looking uncaring, Bad.
That suggests the UK catching up with, and even overtaking Spanish law on banning it means someone has re-done their sums. The cost of several thousand lung cancers per year was nicely offset by the taxes. But there’s also the costs of diagnosing, treating and supporting sufferers of heart disease, heart attacks, angina, thromboses, strokes, hypertension, varicose veins, asthmas, bronchitis, sinusitis, and cot deaths, all exacerbated by smoking. Not to mention the million and one colds, ‘flus, and ‘bugs-going-round’: smoking screws your immune system up. Terrifying for government bean-counters: these things lose employers millions in sick-leave! Oh, horror. The balance sheet no longer looks so good.
On top of that our lovely UK super-spin politicos, the emperors of P.R., the media savvy money-men must have noticed the gradual, growing distaste for smoking. Once oh-so-cool and sexy, now there’s a doubt. It is beginning to look a less cool, or even a bit pathetic. All of which made the legislation much safer ground.
But that makes the early Spanish moves all the more surprising. Of course, Zapatero is one for the big gestures. And, of course, the smoking laws here aren’t exactly inflexible; there’s lots of room for rule bending. Just as well, you may say: this is what we came to Spain for! Spain’s laissez-faire attitude, the freedom, the relaxed non-conformism are wonderful. Stop all this Government interference in our lives!
But what the hell is the Government’s job if not interfering? Vaccinations, railways, police, fire brigades, and health-services – they all interfere in our lives, take money from our taxes, involve laws that limit and demand. You duck the interference and there’s a price to pay. All those oh-so-cool moto helmet-less moto riders, the wind in their hair as they speed round the corner guarantees more cool head-injuries, disabling crashes, and death. Being casual about the fire laws (like flicking your cigarette butt from the car window) burns up livelihoods, houses and people. Bend the laws on smoking and you make people sick. You certainly make me sick!
So should the Spanish government follow the UK with massively increased taxes and tighter laws? Absolutely not. At least, not yet. Spain should play it smarter than Britain, and that’s easy. Don’t tell people that smoking kills (come on, who doesn’t know by now? Don’t launch big advertising campaigns telling us that cancer is nasty (how stupid do you think we are)? Don’t ham up the hospital dramas of bereaved kids and amputated limbs.
Instead go all out on a stealth campaign and, well, tell it like it is. Put your message across in through graphetti, gossip, text messages, the web, TV show jokes, not government adverts: smoking is foul; it is dirty, filthy, gross, pathetic. Link it in teenage minds with copraphilia, an exceptionally nasty psychological deviance: an irresistible urge to eat one’s own faeces. After all, the latter is sick, makes you sick, makes you stink and stained – it’s a pretty good metaphor. Suggest that the appropriate answer to the question, “Do you mind if I smoke,” is “That depends; do you mind if I fart in your face?” till smoking becomes something a billion times worse than unhealthy: sad.
It could just work and an uncool, grossly disgusting, contemptible old-fashioned habit of the older generation will meet no resistance to a cast iron law-tightening round – not even among the rebellious Spanish teens. Out goes interference, in comes a bit of sly hearts-and-minds marketing. And maybe, just maybe, out go the cigarettes!
