Instead of saying “a long time ago,” Korean folktales start with ‘when tigers used to smoke’. Although tigers have not been found to be smoking, humans are famous for wasting their lives by smoking tobacco leaf in its various forms. Smoking is the poison that many people take inside their bodies to escape the harsh reality of a never-ending performance schedule. Though the number of smokers is now falling all over the world, hundreds of millions of people still smoke.
Tobacco leaf was not always used for smoking. It had various uses, as noted in an article published in the ‘Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine’ by Anne Charlton in 2004: the indigenous people of the New World used tobacco leaf for catarrh, colds, and fever, and as a digestive, purgative, and narcotic. In Europe, when it found its way into the Old World, it was prescribed for earache, piles, scrofula, pruritus, smallpox, ringworm, cholera, gout, malaria, strangulated hernia, hysteria, tetanus, skin cancer, bites from poisonous reptiles and insects, and wounds.
Smoking once was considered harmless. It was so much appreciated that European doctors, particularly in England, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, used to blow tobacco smoke into the ass of drowning victims, with the conviction that it would bring them back to life. Later, it was discovered to be highly toxic. In the twentieth century, cigarettes were sold to recovering patients with the hope of relieving stress and maintaining their overall health. People were ignorant about the harmful effects of smoking. Was ignorance a blissful pursuit?
Today, smoking is scientifically established as a harmful addiction causing many diseases, including cancer and Buerger’s disease. Both active and passive smoking kill. Official estimates show around 130,000 deaths per year directly tied to active smoking in Bangladesh. Recently, in a Lancet article, it was said that every year around 1.7 million people die from passive smoking all over the world. The number of deaths from passive smoking is roughly 25000 every year in Bangladesh. The government has taken legislative, regulatory, and public awareness-based measures to encourage people to address the problem of smoking, including the use of photos of various diseases caused by it, aiming to deter smokers from smoking.
Having failed to deter smokers with this, cigarette packets in Bangladesh now warn about passive smoking with the photo of a child to remind smokers of their own children and other non-smokers at home. But the health scare method does not work to discourage smokers from smoking in Bangladesh. The government has consequently gone for the dangers of passive smoking to dissuade smokers from killing their loved ones through this addiction. Tobacco leaf in the form of cigarettes is an insidious substance that pushes smokers towards the painful end of their lives.
In Bangladesh, apart from smoking, the tobacco leaf is also very popular for consumption with betel leaf. Many people consume tobacco leaf, locally known as Jarda (a form of scented, crushed, and cured chewing tobacco), to spice up the experience of chewing betel leaf. It is true that, unlike smoking, there is no such thing as passive chewing. It means it cannot harm others who are not chewing it with betel leaf directly. Only those who consume it will be in danger of having oral cancer in the future.
Some of the young smokers think that it is cool and smart to smoke. Yet others smoke because it is prohibited, and they are attracted to it, or they want to claim their adulthood. Teenagers tend to proclaim that they have grown up and should be given the freedom to indulge in adult bad habits. But they forget that this apparently cool habit is destroying their internal organs and harming passive smokers. It is so attractive and addictive that even soft metal spikes installed on the low boundary wall of an educational institution cannot stop them from using it like a bench to sit comfortably and smoke. The area becomes a temporary gas chamber that directly hits non-smokers’ nostrils.
In Bangladesh, smoking is not a male prerogative; girls have taken up the habit with equal enthusiasm. Some girls, despite being non-smokers, think that men should smoke to prove their masculinity. They cannot think of men not smoking cigarettes. But others are fed up with their husbands’ smoking behavior and the way they disappear to have an intimate time with cigarettes. Some male smokers smoke inside the room, putting the lives of their wives and children in danger. Sometimes both husband and wife smoke, so the question of passive smoking disappears unless their children or other non-smoking relatives are present at that moment.
Initiation to smoking stems from friends and unexpected people, sometimes from the most unexpected person. Female smokers get the training of smoking even from their chauffeur. They are sometimes seen to smoke in the car by sliding the window down, leading to people staring at them with dumbfounded curiosity in Bangladesh. They figure out what exactly is going on, seeing a young girl smoking in the back seat of a car and the driver smoking while driving.
Many restaurants have a smoking zone outside the main area without air conditioning. But restaurants with air-conditioned smoking zones become smokers’ paradise in summer. They want to enjoy the cool air and smoke to their hearts’ content, hurting their lungs. Restaurants also do business by allowing smokers inside and selling their food. Smokers cannot occupy a table. They smoke and then leave, but they have to order at least one item from their menus. This symbiosis is effective for both parties.
Many smokers create a justification bubble to continue this habit. They say that smoking is not bad for health; rather, it is a false allegation. They create a situation of self-immolating ignorance to facilitate inhaling poison. But they forget that they are dealing with fire that will eventually consume their bodies. They want to keep doing it and get their addiction pampered. Biological harmony is at stake because of smoking, and the temporary benefits surround the smokers like thorns.
Smokers sometimes shift from one form to another to stay in the harmful comfort zone. They want to retain the amorous relationship with the tobacco leaf. Some think that vaping is better than cigarettes. Some smokers start vaping, thinking that it would give the lungs some respite from the nicotine onslaught. But studies show the opposite, where vaping is said to be more lethal for the lungs. Some people switch to nicotine pouches to stay connected to the old habit with the same belief.
Chain smokers smoke out of their inalienable attachment, but occasional smokers smoke based on occasions. For occasional smokers, any occasion is good for smoking. They need an excuse to smoke. Whether one is a chain smoker or an occasional one, it is a form of self-flagellation on the lungs. In a world full of pollutants in the air, water, and soil, smoking is like pouring water on a drowning person.
The emotional development of the smokers is stunted. That means they are stuck at the age when the addiction to smoking started. The age warp confines the smokers inside the shell of timelessness. Emotional and physical ages collide, taking away opportunities for the fruitful journey towards the unknown future. The emotional dent does not disappear but hijacks the sense of long-term health. This is the dilemma that envelops smokers like an octopus’ tentacles.
Even physicians smoke, making it like a circus show. Physicians are supposed to discourage people from smoking, but they also become addicted to nicotine. It is their abuse of freedom to sign a pact with disease, despite being the guardian of health and well-being. One oncologist was found to be a compulsive smoker. Formally educated people also smoke despite knowing the risk factors. They live in a state of suicidal denial. They suffer due to smoking and go back to the same old habit of ruining their lives. The belt of smoke throttles them like a boa constrictor. These indicate that formal education and smoking are not mutually exclusive.
Quitting smoking is beneficial but the most challenging part. Many do not quit smoking. But many of those who quit smoking do it for various reasons. Smokers even quit smoking once they got married to have a happy conjugal life, to avoid a premature death, and to avoid turning the wife into a widow. A smoker quit the habit even after reading Alen Carr’s ‘The Easy Way to Quit Smoking’. Before he could finish reading it, he decided to quit, believing that Carr unraveled the reasons for smoking instead of focusing on the reasons for not smoking. Carr himself smoked heavily for thirty years and then quit, discovering that smoking was a psychological trap.
Death has many avenues, but some people have chosen to smoke themselves to death. Increasing the price of cigarettes is not very effective in discouraging smokers from smoking. Every year’s increase has not significantly reduced smoking in Bangladesh. But restricted availability of cigarettes may keep potential smokers away, and counselling may help them get rid of this harmful habit.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Magazine, or its editorial team. The views published are the sole responsibility of the author(s).
