Health

Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
.. smoke. I can’t see that having any long-term effect. I think kids generally
see smoking as a measure of maturity and sophistication for one thing, and if
parents and oldies are agin it, it must be especially worth doing for another.
Maybe that’s the clue. Maybe it’s time for some good old-fashioned
Reverse Psychology. Let’s drag the executives and CEOs that run the tobacco
industry into the spotlight, on the pretext that they deserve some recognition
for the good works they do supporting Sport or the Arts, or whatever it is they
do to ingratiate themselves with the politicians.
Let’s give these arseholes some Real Profile. My bet is that when the
kids actually see the respectably suited middle-aged millionaires that make
all that dough out of their potential or actual addiction, they’ll quit
in disgust en masse.
Well, it’s a thought. The best way to stop smoking is to never start,
of course, but I do know a number of people who have been successful in breaking
the habit. Mind you, I know an awful lot more who will furtively slip outside
into all kinds of inclement weather to satisfy their addiction.
So, I never started. The reason? When I was very young and very susceptible
to endless bronchial complaints, my doctor told me that if I were foolish enough
to take up smoking, I would be dead by age thirty. Of course, to a young boy,
thirty seemed an eternity away, but I was impressionable enough to take him
seriously, and consequently never took it up. (Mind you, it wasn’t long
before this when my brother and I were staying at our aunt’s place in
Kaikoura, we did happen to demolish a pack of Capstan Navy Cuts between us with
no ill effects).
Before we went to Christ’s College and became born again Anglicans, Richard
and I attended Sunday school at the local Presbyterian Church. There again,
young Michael-the-Impressionable was persuaded to take The Pledge i.e.
no drinking, smoking or cursing under pain of Something Dreadful. That actually
held, (apart from the cursing, at least), till I was in my twenties. I remember
being a proper self-righteous little prude, especially at our parents’
boozy parties, which defect my new found drinking to excess surprisingly didn’t
cure – well, not immediately anyway.
Maybe I’m still a bit of a prude, and maybe it’s just prudery that
makes me react so to children smoking. In any case, first things first; I’m
talking about my health here, after all. So, first up; let’s
fuck off smoking in venues.