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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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
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! 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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.
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