powwows and peace pipes

Celeste is a school teacher -- no, she doesn't smoke on school premises -- and she points out that what is sadly missing from the ongoing war between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations -- and the ongoing harassment of smokers by community bullies that results from it -- is a genuine desire to resolve the conflict.

"I was watching the great foes of Northern Ireland -- the Republican extremist Martin McGuinness and the Loyalist extremist Ian Paisley -- finally resolve their differences after an endless war that took many lives and ruined even more," says Celeste, "and it suddenly occurred to me that the tobacco war has been going on for almost as long and it's about time that it, too, ended."

"It's probably not a particularly appropriate suggestion," laughs Celeste, "but what they need to do is to sit down, have a powwow, resolve their differences and smoke a peace pipe."

"Personally, I don't encounter much harassment where I live and work -- we're a pretty laid back sort of community," says Celeste. "While the principal doesn't approve of staff who smoke he's happy to butt out of our personal lives after working hours, and I'm happy to preach all the anti-smoking stuff to the kids because they need to be informed of the health hazards of all drugs."

"It's a different matter, though, when my husband and I have to travel," sighs Celeste. "What's with you city people? There are so many non-smoking signs and self-appointed citizen smoke police in the city that we can't believe we're in the same country!"

"Twice in the past six months I've been harassed by these self-appointed citizen smoke police -- for smoking (with my own personal ashtray) in a park and then outside a library, neither area prohibiting smoking," sighs Celeste, "and I can imagine how horrific this sort of environment would be if you have to put up with it every day."

"What's more scary is that when my husband and I tally these harassing encounters he receives half as many as I do -- and he smokes twice as much," sighs Celeste. "The harassers, so far, have all been male, so it's not just smokers they are targeting but women smokers particularly -- and this puts a nasty slant on it all."

"As I see it, if the ongoing war between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations came to an end, so would the ongoing harassment of smokers by community bullies that results from it," says Celeste. "So, how about it guys? Are your agendas negotiable or non-negotiable? Are you like Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, willing to make peace; or are you like Hamas and Israel, with the former pledged to destroy the other?"

"If we put up a wigwam on some neutral ground, provided you with the finest feathers to adorn your noble heads and gave you the choice of smoking the peace pipe or swigging back some fine whisky, or both, would you meet for a powwow?"

"It was once the time-honored way ancient cultures -- and some of our ancestors -- resolved their differences," says Celeste, "and it's a tragedy, really, that smoking the peace pipe would now be seen as a filthy, dirty, stinking and totally anti-social habit."

"Smoke -- in all its forms -- has incredible powers over and above its mundane uses," says Celeste. "It's been used for thousands of years as a medium for communication, healing and rites in a variety of ancient cultures."

"And tobacco -- like most plants -- has medicinal as well as toxic properties," explains Celeste. "We don't even know half of the magic of plants and herbs that ancient cultures knew -- this knowledge, an oral one, died out when the last ancient culture was wiped out."

"Lighting tobacco and smoking it," says Celeste, "is a peaceful and healing experience for me and, I'd say, for all smokers. It's why we do it, guys. Get it?"

"I'm certainly not going to advise that everybody should take up the habit," laughs Celeste. "On the contrary, I think it only appeals -- in its deepest sense -- to people with a spiritual connection to our ancient roots."

"What can be more fundamental to being a human being than our relationship with fire?"

"I know there are social smokers -- people who just put a cigarette in their mouths to make out while they're in company with smokers -- but they're not real smokers," says Celeste. "And I don't think chain smokers are real smokers, either -- they need stronger medication for what ails them."

"Someone who smokes alone, or in quiet accord with another smoker, is showing a spiritual connection to our ancient roots," says Celeste, "and it's this 'peace pipe' affect that's sorely needed in the tobacco war."

"Once the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations have made their peace I don't expect that harassment of smokers by community bullies will stop overnight," sighs Celeste, "and I don't think powwows and peace pipes are a particularly a good way to deal with bullies in any case."

"What the harassing bullies need is a bit of zap-pow and a piece of pipe stuck where it hurts."

smoking and boiled frogs

Deira, a closet smoker, likens the slow but spectacularly successful gains of the anti-smoking movement over the freedoms of smokers to boiling water and cooked frogs.

"I honestly believe it is far too late to undo the damage," says Deira. "We did nothing but grumble when they turned on the heat 25 years ago -- and increased the heat a degree higher with each passing year -- and now we're cooked."

"I'm a closet smoker because I'd lose my job, my home and respect in the community if my secret habit became known," confides Deira. "I never smoke outside my home and even then I only smoke in the kitchen next to the exhaust fan over the cooker so that my neighbors can't smell the cigarette smoke and get me evicted."

"I notice more and more smokers are now coming out angrily demanding restitution of their rights," says Deira, "but they're wasting their breath -- what remains of it after years of smoking -- and can't possibly catch up with the spectacularly successful efforts of the anti-smoking movement in changing community values."

"The anti-smokers are now in government -- from the top right down to the lowest minion of the public service," laughs Deira, "and no pro-smoking political party will ever gain the ground that the anti-smokers took from them years ago."

"Don't they get it?" laughs Deira. "The time to have stood up and spoken up for smokers' rights was 25 years ago when the anti-smokers coughed their first disapproving cough."

"It's like everything else that's gone to the dogs in our community," sighs Deira. "We stood by in a spirit of tolerance and fair play and let them take away our rights one by one."

"Sure, it was fair to have non-smoking areas -- people who don't smoke shouldn't have to put up with smoky rooms," says Deira, "but who would have thought that in giving them these areas they would take away ours?"

"Sure, it was fair to have warning labels on cigarette packs -- tobacco companies need to protect themselves from litigation," says Deira, "but who would have thought that these labels would turn into ugly, gory graphics of diseases no smoker I know has ever had or is likely to have?"

"Sure, it was fair to increase taxes on cigarettes -- the health risks of smoking need to be paid for," says Deira, "but who would have thought they would deny us medical help when we needed it?"

"Sure, it was fair to smoke outside in the snow and sleet when there's nowhere else to smoke," says Deira, "but who would have thought they would then deny us this place to smoke when summer came and they wanted to be outside?"

"Sure, it was fair to smile and act chastised when someone you knew voice their disapproval," says Deira, "but who would have thought that total strangers -- even people who sell you cigarettes -- now have a God-given right to sneer at you?"

"I could go on and on," sighs Deira, "but I got the message years ago and I am angry that smokers who were in positions of power years ago chose to ignore what was going on and did nothing to stop the situation getting worse."

"A whole generation of young, vigorous people raised on anti-smoking propaganda are now in those positions of power," says Deira, "and I have nothing but contempt for all those old fogies, pushed out to pasture and stripped of their rights to smoke, bleating on to each other about civil liberties."

"No pro-smoking politician or activist will ever be able to preach to anyone other than fellow-smokers," says Deira, "and since so many of us are now closet smokers, who are they kidding about being able to turn the tide?"

"The tide's gone out and it ain't ever coming back in!"

"Nobody can have a reasonable discussion about freedom to smoke with any of these young people in positions of power," says Deira. "They have been brainwashed -- literally fed with anti-smoking propaganda since they started school -- and every time I have tried to put forward my position, with reasonable evidence, I have been contradicted with propaganda and abuse. It's like trying to argue with a religious fanatic -- you just don't bother!"

"What really hurts about these anti-smokers in positions of power is that they do not wish to make smoking less harmful by encouraging the tobacco industry to come up with a benign cigarette -- and they do not wish to delve into the myriad of reasons why anyone would take up smoking in the first place," says Deira. "They just want to stop everyone from smoking, and that's that. They know best. They're God or God's on their side."

"Even those who make their living off smokers -- the tobacco companies, the club and bar owners and the tobacco shops -- are bowing to the New World Order and meekly accepting the government's bullying tactics, telling them what they can and cannot do on their own premises," says Deira. "They are diversifying, trying to find a new way to make money. Not one of them, as far as I know, has come out in front of the media and supported the smokers who support them -- but then what media would give the time of day to lost causes?"

"Damn it," curses Deira, "even when you get online and try to find a site that supports smokers you check out their links and find that they are moles for ASH."

"Face it guys, you're cooked," laughs Deira, "and NO, you're not welcome to come join me in a closet smoke under the kitchen exhaust fan."

"If you had been on the ball, doing your job and protecting our rights over the past 25 years -- rather than partying and enjoying the perks of power -- I wouldn't have been forced into becoming a closer smoker. Okay?"