How did you react to anti-smoking news articles or studies about new tobacco health concerns? Did you instantly change the channel, turn the page, or otherwise turn-off or tune out? I did.
But news that once fostered anxiety can now be beneficial, a source of motivation in helping us stay clean and free.
The following headlines were returned by an September 15, 2020 Google News search of the word nicotine:
- "Nicotine-based insecticides decimate wild birds": Sustainability Times, September 15, 2020
- "BAT on the spot over illegal sale of nicotine pouches In Kenya": Ghetto Radio, September 15, 2020
- "Nearly half of teens who vape say they want to quit": USC News, August 19, 2020
- "Vaping linked to risk of covid-19 in teens and young adults, a study suggests": Washington Post, August 18, 2020
- "IQOS (heated tobacco) replaces vaping as the next cigarette alternative": Bridge Michigan, August 17, 2020
- "Anti-vaping spots by FCB show humiliating side of nicotine addiction": MM&M, August 17, 2020
- "Hospital systems support tobacco tax measure": Lund Report, August 13, 2020
- "Nicotine replacement therapy market worth USD 3.54 billion by 2027": Fortune Business Insights, August 4, 2020
We've watched as the clean indoor air movement has slowly swept the globe, often with e-cigs and vaping being treated the same as smoking. Workers and non-smokers are demanding the right to breathe toxin-free air.
We've watched as smoking was banned in airplanes, in New York's 843 acre Central Park, on all hospital property in nearly every major city, in community playgrounds, in cemeteries, on hundreds of college campuses, at outdoor sporting events, on Hawaii's most famed beaches, on sidewalks in Japan, on all California beaches, and in every room in most hotels.
Smoke-free jails and prisons are the new normal. So is a ban on smoking inside company-owned or government vehicles. Governments are now taking aim at a ban on smoking inside any vehicle transporting a child. And smoking is increasingly a factor considered in family court child custody, visitation, and child abuse decision-making.
Science is awakening to the fact that there may not be any living cell in the entire human body that isn't touched and harmed by tobacco toxins.
Where allowed by law, employers are beginning to openly discriminate in refusing to hire anyone testing positive for nicotine. Some are threatening to fire all current employees who test positive after being offered a reasonable period of time to stop.
Fuel and living costs are now rising faster than income in many nations. Millions of hooked parents are increasingly confronted with the choice of buying food for their hungry child or nicotine for their addiction.
It's a situation made worse by cash strapped governments that increasingly became dependent on tobacco taxes, and the dependability of nicotine's grip upon the addict's brain.
Personally, it's offensive that most politicians either accept tobacco industry campaign contributions or look upon the enslaved nicotine addict as a highly dependable taxpaying cash cow. They just don't seem to get it. Or then, maybe they do.
At $48.50 for a pack of Marlboro Golds and the nation's cheapest pack of cigs costing $29.00, Australia has the highest cigarette prices in the world.[1]
It also has a ban on cigarette advertising nationwide, logo-less and colorless cigarette packs totally void of branding (plain packaging), with nearly the entire cigarette pack covered by photos of smoking-induced diseases or dead smokers.
So how's all that working? Is the government succeeding in motivating Aussie smokers to stop? No.
Here in the U.S. we have no disturbing photos on packs, the nation's average price in 2020 was $5.51 per pack,[2] and it isn't unusual to see cigarettes being openly advertised and sold near schools.
What's fascinating is that the adult rate of current smoking in both nations is rather close, 13.7% in the U.S. in 2018,[3] and 14.7% in Australia in 2019.[4]
The bottom line? Real drug addicts, coerced cessation isn't nearly as effective as one might think. So if you're thinking that breaking free would be easier if the price were to double, triple, quadruple, or quintuple, think again.
Vaping is currently significantly cheaper than smoking. But with tobacco companies buying up e-cig companies, governments battling teen addiction to Juuling, and concern over vaping technology being used for delivery of illegal drugs, there's every reason to expect the price difference to narrow.
The vaping addict's dream of being able to tank-up inside public buildings is under heavy assault too, as governments at all levels are amending smoke-free indoor air laws so as to treat e-cigs the same as cigs.
Let's face it, society will continue to increasingly see and treat the nicotine addict as a social outcast, leper, pariah, litterbug, and loser. Imagine what it's like for the pregnant smoker.
Whether we accept or deplore the way society treats those still in bondage, news of the latest assaults upon them can serve as motivation that helps prevent us from joining them.
References:
2. Fair Reporters, Cigarette prices by state, January 17, 2020, https://fairreporters.net/health/prices-of-cigarettes-by-state/ - accessed September 15, 2020.
3. CDC, Current Cigarette Smoking Among U.S. Adults Aged 18 Years and Older: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/resources/data/cigarette-smoking-in-united-states.html - accessed September 15, 2020.
4. Greenhalgh, EM et al. 1.3 Prevalence of smoking -- adults. Tobacco in Australia: Facts and issues. Melbourne: Cancer Council Victoria; 2020. Available from http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-1-prevalence/1-3-prevalence-of-smoking-adults - accessed September 15, 2020.
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Published in the USA