The way I see it, if we could give up smoking during one of the most frustrating and stressful times in our nations history (during the Bush v. Gore crap, and we all see how poorly things turned out), then anyone can quit. Anytime.
Give It Up, Smoker
Death, cancer, rotted teeth, emphysema won't do it, but 62 cents will?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate ColumnistWednesday, April 8, 2009
There is a wail, a cry, a powerful lament rising across the land. Can you hear it? Can you make it out?
It might be a little difficult to recognize. It's that raspy, croaking noise, sort of like an emphysemic chainsaw making out with a bucket of powdered glue. Hear it now?
Yes, it's the gravelly howl of the nation's livid smokers, AKA "the last persecuted group in America" (well, except for the obese. And Catholics, Mormons, dwarves, Hummer owners, gun lovers, vegans, atheists, lawyers, Wall Street execs, lesbians, Mexicans, working moms, single moms, obese single Mexican lesbian moms and a few dozen others, but never mind that now) whose God-given civil rights are now being trampled by our increasingly oppressive, fascist government.
The worst part about this shocking assault? No one seems to even notice, or care. Oh the humanity.
Maybe you haven't heard? How smoking just became quite a bit more expensive? It's true. Not only did the federal government nearly triple the tax on a pack of regular smokes (and more than 10x for those hideous mini-cigar things), but then Big Tobacco itself, in anticipation of the loss in profits from the new tax, went ahead and preemptively jacked up prices as well.
Upshot: a single pack of cigarettes now costs just slightly more than, say, a vente caramel mocha from Starbucks, or a triple cheeseburger and a small fries from Mickey D's, or about half of "Fast & Furious." Imagine.
For many hardcore smokers, the new tax is nothing short of a total fascist apocalypse nightmare, with many convinced the U.S. government is clearly trying to snuff out one of our last constitutional freedoms to kill ourselves as grossly and obviously as we damn well please. Those bastards.
It all spins into an amusing news story about how, immediately after the new tax went into effect, the various stop-smoking 'quitlines' across America -- did you know such things existed? I sure didn't -- lit up like so many flaming Christmas trees, as thousands of fed-up smokers decided, "Well, that's it. Enough's enough. Time to quit smoking."
You read that right. Lung cancer, heart disease, rotted gums, emphysema, reeking clothes, sallow skin, impotence, shriveled lung capacity and the general skull-crushing obviousness of it all, combined with all manner of heart-wrenching ad campaigns for the past 20 years apparently couldn't do what a measly 62-cent tax increase could. WTF indeed.
It is, you could say, a simple regurgitation of the age-old American truism: there is no more powerful stimulant/deterrent in our society than the pocketbook. Not sex, not God, not a plea from your weeping child, not death itself, nothing comes close to changing human behavior faster and more effectively than forcing us to pay a lot for something for which we used to pay very little. (Notable exceptions: Coffee, jeans, water. OK, follow-up truism: We are nothing if not wildly inconsistent).
As for the "persecuted group" angle, that's almost too childish to entertain, and not merely because every group in America, at one point or another, likes to think their personal gaggle of beliefs and behaviors is the "real" persecuted one. No, the truly amusing thing is how some smokers seem to believe there is something akin to unrestricted freedom in American life. Isn't that cute?
Really, do we not recognize how everything in modern existence, from the clothes you wear to the language you speak to the food you eat to the computer you use to the color you paint you walls is, at some level, regulated and controlled by the government?
And therefore, to attain some silly libertarian vision of "true" freedom means you must haul your Marlboro-loving butt far off the grid and eat wild berries and never bathe or read or speak English again, as you die at 27 from swallowing exactly the wrong weird mushroom growing outside your homemade yurt?
Yes, I know, that's a wild exaggeration. But so is bitching about no longer being allowed to stink up a restaurant.
Also lost amid the outcry: how the same legislation that cranked up the tobacco tax also gives long-overdue powers back to the FDA to regulate Big Tobacco -- powers, by the way, that Bush twice vetoed, in the name of corporate cronyism and general immoral idiocy.
Is that the real smokers' lament? "Damn you, Obama administration, working to regulate the chemicals in my poisons and trying to make me marginally safer! Can't I just get lung cancer and emphysema and be a massive burden on my friends, family and the health care industry in peace, without government meddling?" Wait, that can't be right.
Oh, and one more thing. All those billions in new tax revenue? They go to fund the expansion of the SCHIP, also known as basic health care for millions of uninsured children.
And there you have it, your choice in a nutshell: Keep on smoking, and improve a kids' life. Or quit smoking, and improve your own. Sounds like a pretty fair deal either way.
But on to the larger, more pertinent question: Will it work? Will millions, or even thousands, of smokers actually quit as a result of the tax increase? Or does such legislation do nothing to address the deeper issues and problems at play, such as what it means to have true health, to respect and honor and take even basic care of your own body, and to begin to earn a basic understanding of root causes, the true sources of our addictions and habits? I already know my answer.
By the way, I wrote a column a few years back about the insidious myth of quitting smoking, about how Big Tobacco is in reprehensible, borderline Satanic collusion with Big Pharma and the health insurance biz in general to convince victim-happy Americans that quitting smoking is just insanely difficult and incredibly stressful and you're probably not strong enough to handle it and will probably fail a hundred times and maybe you shouldn't even try.
Here is the great, blasphemous secret: Quitting smoking is relatively easy. It is relatively painless. For most, quitting does not require inhuman amounts of willpower, drugs, patches, gum, therapy, straightjackets, begging, or a swell hospital video of surgeons ripping out one of your black and desiccated lungs.
The fact that we have been so aggressively convinced otherwise, that we've been taught for ages that we are pathetic and powerless in the face of these noxious products, that we are all weak, bewildered victims of our own impossibly complicated, insurmountable addictions, well, I hereby nominate that insidious BS as the real violation, the true attack on your intellectual and spiritual freedom. Really, where is the outrage?
Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate.com. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. To get on Mark's personal (i.e.; non-Chronicle) mailing list (appearances, books, readings, blogs, yoga and more), please click here and remove two more.
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