Smoking defenders are full of puff 'n' nonsense

Krabbe K. Piting, Contributor, Jakarta

Aaah, the smell of kretek (clove cigarettes), that quintessential Indonesian smell.

Everybody has his or her own pet peeves. Mine is when smokers light up in public places and assume that others tolerate their cloud of cancer-laden smoke, kretek or otherwise. Never mind it's a crowded bus and the windows are permanently jammed, and have been from the Malari days back in the mid-1970s.

Never mind the stink that clings to other people's clothing. Never mind the dangers of secondhand smoke.

When a group of people goes out, even when there's only one smoker in the group, they have to be seated in the smoking section because by God the smoker has to have his or her fix of that all important nicotine! Therefore the whole group has to be enveloped by said cloud of toxic smoke.

Obviously one cannot complain because it is the smoking area, after all. Oh, the lengths we go to accommodate a certain person's addiction. But then again, addicts are selfish people, no?

Singapore has been known as a draconian place with its extensive list of restrictions and fines, including one on public smoking. Now big cities formerly bastions of hedonism, such as New York and London, and even a whole subcontinent (India) are following suit.

An essay by Christopher Hitchens on the New York of Mayor Bloomberg in the February edition of Vanity Fair prompted a large number of responses, but they were almost all comments on his implementation of the Smoke-Free Act.

You would've thought that people are more concerned by the imposition of shockingly petty laws such as fines on unauthorized use of milk crates (including sitting on them), claiming two seats in a subway car and feeding pigeons. But no, nicotine is a much more important issue.

The British artist David Hockney gave his two cents worth in a long letter: "People who smoke take a pause and ponder things."

Yes, but I bet that they never ponder whether the people from neighboring table are bothered by their billows of nicotine.

Hockney continued: "Once we had lively, smoky, talkative places. Now everywhere has to be sanitized and the same. Why? Just in case Emily with Asthma might want to go in? This means Emily with Asthma is dictating things for everybody."

And by this Hockney assumes that the people of New York would rather be dictated by David with Detoriating Lungs. Another pearl of wisdom from Hockney: "Death awaits you whether you smoke or not...If Dr. Atkins (the diet guru) had known he was going to slip on the street, he could have gorged himself on french fries for six months."

But gorging on french fries will only clog a greedy person's arteries and bear no consequences whatsoever, healthwise, to the person sitting next to him or her. What Hockney, as with other tobacco junkies, fails to realize is that cigarette smoke harms other people.

Another reader, Mary Dickie of Toronto, put it nicely: "Just imagine Hitchens defending the right of SARS patients to cough and sneeze freely in the faces of fellow restaurant patrons." Hail Mary!

Smokers, feel free to get yourselves lung cancer. But also try to understand our displeasure at getting it at your pleasure. Not every inch of Indonesian soil should be free of cigarette smoke. But there should be more tolerance to other people's health concerns and a ban on smoking in more public places.

If you own a business and afraid it will diminish your profits, fear not. A recent poll of almost 35,000 Londoners showed two thirds would favour a ban in public places. Naj Dehlavi, from London's antismoking pressure group Ash, said: "The scare stories about reduced profits in non-smoking pubs are rubbish. The majority of the public doesn't smoke, so it is common sense to cater for them." Hear, hear.