Where there's smoke, there's legislation
27th July, 2006
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Nice things about the new restrictions on smoking: hangovers are easier to handle; hair doesn't stink the next morning; less likely to die of growing range of cigarette-related diseases. Un-nice things about the new restrictions: scary people loitering in the street beside local bottle shop; odd new fenced area in Fortitude Valley Mall; can no longer eat bag of chips in bar after work. Thought it would be all good. It ain't.
I don't smoke (Only wish I was a smoker when very, very drunk or very, very unsettled by new super-smart man in office/threat of being sacked/being told I am old and sad by man who is exactly on day younger than me). People like me are supposed to love the latest edition of the rules: no smoking anywhere you might think about eating and breathing simultaneously. My lungs and my hair do love the new rules. The rest of me is taking some time to adjust. A number of years ago, for my sins, I spent a few weeks in Canberra where the smoking laws were considered unusually tough at the time. A weird local ritual was that everyone left the restaurant table between courses to duck out for a quick cancer stick. It was a bizarre thing to show off to visiting friends - a ritual entirely forgotten until I looked around my local Brisbane bar one recent Friday night to discover I was the only person standing guard over about 14 pots and schooners. Everyone else was outside having a good time while I debated whether to spit in all the unmanned glasses or go out and develop a habit I'm supposed to believe is now unsociable. Let's admit something here: the smokers are the people having a good time. Okay, they may die horribly - as chronicled by the growing collection of anti-smoking cigarette packet illustrations I have assembled on my desk - but they're not going to be alone in the sign-on queue at the pearly gates. As I stood friendless in the bar, master of all the unattended glasses I surveyed, it occurred to me that drink-spikers around Queensland must be having a ball. Leave your glass and duck outside for a gasper, having made yourself a target for every non-smoking freako with a party drug. A couple of days later I walked up the Valley Mall and found a piece of truly innovative thinking: an outdoor section intended for smokers, fenced off and adorned with signs saying, "Do not consume food or drink in this area". The backing seats belonged to one of the many local takeaways. Genius! Make the people who want to eat and drink the problem. Quarantine the poor smokers from them. I thought it was funny until the barman at another pub wouldn't let me nibble something solid while I finished my beer. The sign and the area it protected had all the sincerity of the old no-smoking rows on airlines. They existed in the days before passive smoking was a debatable subject. Can you even imagine debating today whether passive smoking is good/bad/a totally wanky concept? I'm a firm believer in making smoking antisocial. But I'm worried it won't work. So far I see lots of evidence that the existing laws are making eating and drinking antisocial and smoking a loved but threatened pastime. And I'm having disturbing thoughts about those body parts on cigarette packets. I started collecting these vile new pictures after I gave up collecting the plastic cards in chip packets that picture rugby league players because: a) I'd have to put on about 15kg to get them all, and b) the bloke who sits next to me kept stealing them. The cigarette packet pictures have a strangely compelling air about them - unlike smokers. As they sit there, they're losing some of their horror. The one with the rotten teeth just makes people laugh now, as if it's an off-colour joke. The new laws are certainly changing our habits, but they might end up changing the wrong ones. |
