The Smug Alert: Part Two
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Kevin Godbee - Feb 2, 2011
- 5 min read
By C. R. S. Lyles
This is the place referenced in the countless examples of a dystopian future; these are the limits of human control.
Since the 1600s, those in power have wanted nothing more than to bring the use of tobacco under their jurisdiction, either to control its sale or to eradicate it altogether. Beginning with James I, the tyranny of tobacco’s opposition has grown in its methods and goals, and yet the underlying motivation remains unchanged.
Last July, the University of Florida initiated a campus-wide ban of tobacco use on all of its properties, becoming one of the first major universities in Florida to do so.
The ban, stemming from an initiative put forth by the Healthy Gators Coalition, a branch of the Alachua County Health Department, outlawed "the personal use of any tobacco product, whether intended to be lit or not, which shall include smoking…, as well as the use of an electronic cigarette or any other device intended to simulate smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco, including snuff; chewing tobacco; smokeless pouches; any other form of loose-leaf, smokeless tobacco; and the use of unlit cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco."
Dr. Jane Emmerée, a former participant in the coalition, stated that "The mission of the coalition is to create an environment supportive of the development and maintenance of a healthy body, mind and spirit for all members of the University of Florida community"
Borrowing this mantra from Dr. Jill Varnes, the former vice chair of the Coalition, and Dr. Steve Dorman, the current vice chair, the statement itself, while understandably benevolent in its intention, begs the question, How does eradicating smoking develop or maintain a healthy mind or spirit for current smokers?
Yes, smoking is bad for the body, there’s been multiple reports and blah blah blah. That’s not the issue here.
The issue is that banning smoking on a public property is not only ill-advised, but can’t be enforced because smoking isn’t illegal.
Though the proponents of health care reform and the anti-smoking crusade would like nothing more than for tobacco to be illegalized, the fact remains that it is not, and the revenue it generates inadvertently pays for the aforementioned anti-tobacco proponents to continue with their vendetta.
Which, of course, brings up the issue of how to enforce a policy which is unfounded in any vestige of legality? The answer, simply put, is through fear.
For example, the other day a young student was caught by a police officer on the University of Florida campus while having a cigarette. The officer ridiculed and harassed the student for several minutes, reminiscent of a Gestapo-esque authority, before allowing the student, who had put out the cigarette when asked, to leave.
There was no citation given, no arrest, nothing. Nothing more than a lecture on the student’s personal health choices and how said choices were affecting the other students and, more importantly, the environment.
Since when did police officers have the authority to curb an individual’s behavior based on how that would affect the environment? Sure, if a student is opening up ten thousand aerosol cans simultaneously, then an intervention could be justified. But smoking? As referenced in the first part of this series, the self-satisfaction of the anti-smoking crusade knows no bounds.
Which leads into another component of their vendetta: the various advertising techniques that they choose to use in order to ensnare and confuse the smoking community.
For example, on January 12th of this year, the local independent newspaper of Gainesville, The Alligator, ran an advertisement which read:
"SMOKING STUDY: Do you smoke? Do you have a New Year’s resolution to QUIT SMOKING? The Alachua County Health Department is looking for young adults who drink alcohol and are interested in receiving a new treatment to help them quit smoking."
In researching why the advertisement specifically called for "young adults who drink alcohol", a representative of this particular division of the Alachua County Health Department stated that the program was designed to "look for a correlation between binge drinking and smoking."
Dr. Steven Pokorny, the head of this division, was unable to be reached for comment regarding this article in time for its publication, but the representative was able to provide a cursory background on the history of this program.
Beginning in July of last year (coincidentally coinciding with the campus-wide tobacco ban at UF), the program was designed to track how alcohol, and specifically binge drinking, affects smoking levels.
The program did stress that it is not encouraging students or young adults to binge drink, but is merely interested in tracking the correlation between the two.
This study is interesting for two main reasons: one, it is propagating the same myth begun over four hundred years ago by James I as an excuse to ban tobacco use, and two, it assumes (though not explicitly stated) that people who smoke are probably more likely to drink, and possibly to excess.
Smokers have a bad reputation, and always have, but to presume that a smoker is not only going to spew dangerous carcinogens into your children’s lungs but also drink to the point of blacking out is somewhat offensive.
The goal behind the initiatives at UF and the Alachua County Health Department are benevolent in nature, meaning they really do only want the health of our state and our nation to exceed the rest of the world’s because, frankly, America’s system of democracy makes it one of the few nations in the world that can become the healthiest. But the nature of being an American is having the freedom to choose, and while we have the capability to become the leader in world health care, it doesn’t mean we have the capacity.
People always will enjoy doing things which are slightly bad for them. Fast food, drinking, smoking, gambling…it’s the nature of freedom. We’re allowed to be a little stupid now and again, and the ability to do so is what smoking bans and health studies such as these detract from.
The people at the forefront of changing health care and how we treat our bodies are, in my experiences, kind, polite, and good-hearted people, but their participation in these endeavors is woefully misguided. As stated in the first installment of this series, smugness can be just as deadly as carbon-emissions, secondhand smoke, or chlorofluorocarbons.
But smugness, unlike those elements, brings a much more harmful effect than death with it. In lieu of mortality, smugness seeks to control the life choices and morality of the mass populous, all in the name of the all-mighty greater good.
Related Article: The Smug Alert (Part 1)
Carter R. Lyles is a student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL and at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is a journalism/psychology major, and in addition to his work at Pipes Magazine, he has contributed articles to The Alligator, Thursday Night Magazine, and The Fine Print. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. 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Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
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Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 631. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with pipe maker Dan Keller from Good Made Better. Dan is from South Dakota. Growing up working in the family hardware store where he was always finding solutions to fixing things, he ended up always wanting to make things. He now makes elegant handmade pens, pen holders, portable desks, blotters, blotting paper, book carry cases, and of course artisan pipes. At the top of the show we are continuing the virtual tour of Brian’s pipes with his “f#@k you pipes”.
Thanks for the illuminating article. Although it preaches to the choir, so to speak, it’s important to be aware of the initiatives at UF and the Alachua County Health Department.
“The mission of the coalition is to create an environment supportive of the development and maintenance of a healthy body, mind and spirit for all members of the University of Florida community”
Ok, but how is anyone else’s health any of your business? How is what the Healthy Gators Coalition define as healthy the same as what everyone else defines as healthy?
There is also mental health. If having a smoke makes some feel better mentally, than taking that away harms their mental health.
You can make all the reasonable remarks you want. This isn’t about reason, it is about control and hate. Every time “they” can prohibit you from doing something “they” come closer to control over what you actually DO. Do you really think “they” are concerned about the general health of the population? Then why do “they” allow so many fast food franchises to be set up? Why do “they” allow so many additives to be put into your food? If “they” are so concerned about the general welfare of the populace, why are prescription drugs cheaper in Canada? Why is the wide s spread use of high fructose corn syrup allowed in food products? It’s not about health, it’s about control.
I actually just wrote a letter to my college (Washington University in St. Louis) to try to get pipes to be exempt from our newly enforced smoking ban. I don’t think the ban should be there at all, but one step at a time, you know? Here’s a copy:
“A bearded professor is sitting on a bench on his university’s quad, enjoying a break between classes and watching the clouds float overhead on a warm, summer day. While people watching, he pulls out his old Dunhill pipe, packed gently with Prince Albert tobacco. Putting match to tobacco, exhales a ring of smoke and sweet aroma. Returning his attention from his pipe to the quad, he sees a campus security officer approaching him. “Put that thing out,” he said, and hands the professor a ticket.
Being raised in a local restaurant and jazz-club, I saw first-hand the wonderful effect that not allowing smoking in an establishment has; however, the wonderful result was because of the lack of cigarette smoke, not all smoke in general. A sight similar to the one previously described is the event that changed me from ardent supporter of Washington University’s campus-wide smoking ban to hazarding to suggest that there need to be certain exceptions. The smoking ban is noble in intention, and has had many great results, but it spans further than is needed. Washington University’s campus-wide smoking ban should not apply to pipes because, though they are tobacco products, they are not nearly as contentious or dangerous as cigarettes. To show this, I will take the main reasons for the ban, one by one, and attempt to show that they are either not applicable to pipes whatsoever, or not significantly so; I will then address possible concerns to allowing pipes to be exempt from the ban.
According to proponents and designers of Wash-U’s smoking-ban, along with supporters of other outdoor smoking-bans, there are two primary reasons for the restriction: a more pleasant environment and the dangers of second-hand smoke. As for the first justification, there are two main prongs to this. First, the smell of the smoke: most pipe smokers are frequently approached and complimented on the aroma of their pipe tobacco, which is often flavored with cherry or vanilla. They are told that it reminded the person of a grandfather or uncle who used to smoke a pipe. This, coupled with the number of pipe smokers, which is so insignificant in comparison to cigarette smokers, makes it unlikely that their presence would be noticed and, if it is, even more unlikely to offend. As for the trash caused by cigarettes, this again does not apply to pipes; when a pipe is finished, the tobacco is simply ash and leaves, biodegradable substances that are barely noticeable and cause no detriment to the environment. The first of the two justifications for the ban on smoking is not applicable to pipes.
The concern of second-hand smoke is very real. However, the majority of the carcinogens from cigarettes comes from the chemicals sprayed on the plant prior to harvesting and from the machines used in production. These two factors are not present within pipe-tobacco and the amount of carcinogens is thus exponentially reduced. The amount of smoke to which one is exposed is another factor involved. As was previously mentioned, the number of pipe smokers is minute, thus the amount of exposure would be minute, as well. Additionally, the average pipe smoker enjoys far less tobacco on average than the average cigarette smoker smokes; once again, this would mean there would be less exposure. Thus, though smoke is still present with pipes, the danger is far less than with cigarettes.
I would imagine that this exception would cause a number of concerns. One of the first would be that there would be an increase in pipe-smoking. This is extremely unlikely, as pipes are not used to attain a chemical fix as cigarettes are. Thus, those who smoke cigarettes for a nicotine fix, as most do, would find no solace in the humble pipe. Another possible complaint is that it is unfair to allow one tobacco medium and not another; so be it. There are a number of private communities that allow people to own a golden retriever but not a pit-bull; both are dogs and both pose potential risks, but one is so much more hazardous than the other that one is forbidden while the other is allowed.
Pipes are a totally different breed than cigarettes and should not summarily be banned simply
because they are similar. Pipes are cleaner, less offensive, non-addicting, and safer. For these reasons,
the all-encompassing smoking-ban on campus should be amended to allow for the smoking of pipes.”
I am a huge fan of tobacco (and I also like to drink some spirits from time to time, mainly rum, although I take great care on drinking as I once almost fallen into alcoholism) and coffee. I like my pipes, I smoke daily and I have the great opportunity of living in a country where we have a smoking lounge at the office and 99% of the bars and pubs allow smoking (And that’s about it with the advantages of living in Eastern Europe 🙂 ). Although I am a man prone to vice, I can not say that I agree for example with the consumption of drugs (marijuana etc.) and neither the crappy legal stuff they call etno-botanics. Is there a difference between alcohol,cofee,tobacco and marijuana. How would you react if you would find a kid smoking pot at the entrance, not to mention that one night while I was going on the rooftop of my building to enjoy a cigar I found two guys with syringes in their veins?
Seeing this crusade against smoking makes me sick as the real dangers out there although more or less illegal run free. For example, marijuana appears in a lot of movies lately, while tobacco smokers if there are any are usually the “bad-guys”. I had the chance of seeing what a few joints smoked weekly can do to a person, sometimes smart people. Result: at least as bad as the excess of alcohol.
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.\
-H. L. Mencken