HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1996-11-20, Page 5By Raymond Canon
International Scene
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1996 PAGE 5.
Getting killed
still legal
Smoking is, as far as I'm concerned,
the entire point of being an adult.
The American humourist Fran Leibowitz
wrote that thought about a decade ago. I
doubt that she would write it today — if only
because non-smokers would immediately
burn her at the stake.
On second thought: naw. 'Way too much
air pollution. They'd probably just crucify
her.
There was a time, not so very long ago,
when lighting up a butt was considered
attractive, even sexy. Bogey and Bacall,
Crawford and Coward — everybody who was
anybody smoked: We smoked in airplanes
and buses; in doctor's waiting rooms and
restaurants. Nobody asked if they could
smoke when they came to your house. Of
course they could smoke. That's why you
had ash trays all over the place.
Well, no more. Smoking is definitely and
officially no longer glamourous. U.S.
President Clinton has officially denounced
it. Our own Prime Minister, (while gleefully
continuing to pocket the tax money charged
on each pack of cigarettes) has publicly
allowed that "hit's a bad 'abit'."
The exchange
of ideas
With foreign travel at an all-time high and
virtually total freedom in the
communications field, it is truly remarkable
how ideas spread from one country to
another. It is as if this spread was as
inevitable as the coming and going of the
tide and, while we may modify an idea as it
crosses our border, it is fundamentally the
same concept.
Those of us who grew up during and
immediately after World War II were the
first ones to feel the effects of the Keynesian
revolution. It was the ideas of the British
economist John Maynard Keynes who taught
that governments could play a bigger role in
the fortunes of a country and that, if we did
not have the money, we could borrow it. In
this fashion came the birth of the use of
deficit financing and, if Keynes pointed out
that the money borrowed should be paid
back at the peak of the next business cycle,
we were too busy borrowing to worry about
the paying back.
Along with that came the vow of my
generation that our families would not have
to suffer as people did during the Great
Depression. This caused governments to
gradually introduce social welfare programs
on a scale never before envisaged and, if not
adequate attention was given to the long-
term funding of such programs, there was
always the above-mentioned deficit
financing to tide one over.-
Small wonder that the 60s and 70s were
the halcyon days of western Europe and
North America. We had relatively low rates
Joe Camel, a cartoon character invented
by the makers of Camel cigarettes, has
turned out to be just about the worst idea a
Madison Avenue hack ever had. "Uncle Joe"
has become a lightning rod for the American
Anti-Smoking Movement — a symbol of
everything they detest and deplore. As a
half-page ad in a recent edition of New York
Times asked, "After all who should tell kids
about tobacco? Their parents...or Uncle
Joe?"
We live in smoker-hostile times. Anybody
addicted to the weed will find him or herself
segregated in restaurants, ostracized at social
gatherings and frowned upon the instant they
flick their Bic.
The building I work in has been declared a
smoke-fret zone. Nicotine junkies have to
hie themselves off to a depressing little
'smoking room' on the second floor. Others
stand around in clumps on the sidewalk,
puffing, coughing, and avoiding the eyes of
pink-lunged, self-righteous colleagues.
It could be worse. Last month 6,000
employees of Motorola's two plants in
Illinois, received a memo informing them
that they risk being fired if caught smoking
on Motorola property — and that includes in
their own cars while in the company parking
lot.
There's a town in California where it's
illegal to smoke anywhere outdoors.
So how do I feel about the escalating
of unemployment and high levels of positive
government intervention. To paraphrase the
French writer Voltaire, everything wks for
the best in the best of all possible worlds.
Keynes, who had long since gone to the
grave, would not have been amused. Theie
was always the question how the enormous
debt, which was piling up, was going to be
paid back, not to mention whether the social
welfare programs could continue to be
funded.
Governments, however, assured us that the
matter was both under consideration and
under control.
Along with this social democratic
philosophy went a greater level of attention
being placed on the individual. His or her
rights became the partner of the welfare state
and responsibility became a neglected word.
We bent over backward to make sure that
the individual's rights were protected even if
the result at times bordered on anarchy.
Special interest groups sprang up
everywhere, only to clash with other groups
whose demands for a place in the sun
conflicted with those demanding the same
place. Groups became allies for a specific
cause only to break down in acrimony when
priorities changed.
Invariably the reaction set in. It became
apparent to economists that we could no
longer afford the fiscal burden inherent with
a generous welfare system. Governments,
always timid when it came to offending
voters, were reluctant to tell the truth and the
charade of the free lunch continued.
This ambivalence could only last so long
and what a shock it was when there was
widespread realization that our lunch was
not what had been advertised. Ontario has
had its days of protest, France has
Smoker's War? Ambivalent, actually. I've
been on both sides of this particular No
Man's Land. I kicked a 25-year habit, stayed
clean for five years then strayed again. As I
write, I haven't smoked for three months, but
I don't kid myself. I know I'm only one puff
away from being a two-pack-a-day man.
I know that smoking is a grubby,
expensive, debilitating and thoroughly
addictive habit. I also know that non-
smokers can be, you'll pardon the pun, a pain
in the butt.
Aside from kids naive enough to be
conned by the likes of Joe Camel, I don't
know a single smoker who's happy about
being addicted to nicotine. Most smokers
could stand a little sympathy and
compassion. What they don't need is some
snooty, Holier-than-thou zealot preaching at
them. Cut them some slack, folks. They're
smokers, not lepers.
And if you're really feeling generous,
spare a kind thought for John Taylor. He
smoked his last cigarette in the snow outside
a public building in Utah last January.
When he finished his cigarette, John
Taylor walked inside the public building,
which happened to be the Utah State Prison
Execution Shed. John Taylor was then shot
to death by a Utah firing squad.
The State of Utah forbids smoking inside
any public building.
Getting killed is still perfectly legal.
experienced weeks of riots. Even Germany,
that most wealthy of European nations, now
faces the fact that it cannot afford both the
cost of reunification and the weight of the
most generous welfare perks in the western
world.
In the midst of all this agonizing comes
the second industrial revolution, this time
not one of mass production but of
communications. Jobs disappear and are
slower to be replaced by new ones.
Add to that the dramatic effects of trade
liberalization and workers can be excused
for wondering where all that stability went
and if it is ever going to come back again.
All in all a gloomy picture, you might say.
Well, yes and no! Perhaps over the past 50
years we have been pampered a bit too much
too fast. Being given social welfare benefits
that could not be sustained and wage
increases that could not be justified out of
productivity gains has to have a day of
reckoning.
We have been led to believe for so long
that governments will look after us that we
have lost the feeling of self-reliance and
responsibility. If the present social and
economic turmoil is to teach us anything, it
is that there must always be a place in our
lives for such qualities if we are to survive.
It was, after all, the great British historian
Arnold Toynbee, who pointed out that any
civilization that failed to respond to
challenges when confronted with them, was
doomed to be relegated to the scrap-heap of
history.
If we can get our self-reliance, sense of
responsibility and entrepreneurship in
working order, we have a far better chance
of avoiding being just another example of
the decline and fall of a once vibrant society.
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Ignoring not an option
This week is National Drug Awareness
Week. Activities and programs are being
hosted throughout the area by various
organizations to educate parents and kids
about drugs, choices and the consequences
of decisions.
Huron Addiction Assessment and Referral
Centre noted that education is the best
prevention. Yet it also indicates that young
people's misguided view of their own
mortality, their weakness to peer pressure,
their struggle to make independent decisions
and curiosity may at times, be too strong an
opponent.
The greatest influence a parent can have is
to be a good example, yet even that may
only work in retrospect. Mary Gregg, a
counsellor with HAARC said that while
most teens will veer from their parents'
values, they will adopt them eventually — if
they survive their teens.
Well, that just breaks my heart. The very
things that make us love young people, their
spontaniety, their energy, their passion, are
the very things that make it difficult to
protect them. As Gregg said surviving the
teen years is difficult, especially when they
put themselves in dangerous situations.
In most cases, drug and alcohol abuse
among young people is not extreme. These
experimenters are unlikely to find
themselves hooked. But a mind-altering
substance impairs judgement. Recently, I
encountered two drunk young women,
returning from a party. One had been the
trusting passenger, the other the designated
driver. The former believed her friend to be
sober. Her friend clearly wasn't.
And this is only one example. There have
been stories of date rape or people
abandoned in unfamiliar surroundings
among strangers. They are stoned and
vulnerable.
Just trying something once is no
guarantee. People should be aware that all
drugs have risks. For some it can begin the
first time you take them.
Kids want to be cool. They want to have
fun. They have their whole life ahead of
them. They know it's dangerous, but they
play the odds. One factor they may not
consider, however, is that while they may
appear to get away with it early, there could
be consequences to face later on. When you
fill your body with poison the past may
come back to haunt you.
There are enough things in this life to
regret over which we have no control. While
the future is always too far off for kids to
consider, it is a tragedy that the fun they
have today might have repercussions when
they're ready to grow up.
I focus on the aspect of teen drug and
alcohol abuse, certainly not because I
believe adults above it, but the younger the
mind the more impressionable. If they can
be discouraged early, or at the least can be
stalled, the likelihood that it will become a
serious problem lessens.
Identifying there is a concern at any age is
the first step. Dealing with it is the next.
Ignoring it is not an option.
Any parents who do have concerns about
themselves or their children should contact
HAARC at 482-1767
Arthur Black