Menthol Ban Vs My Nan
My mum has always said that if my grandmother has to stop smoking it will kill her.
It’s the kind of contradictory statement that my family would come up with but part of me believes it.
My grandmother is... well, I shouldn’t say as she’s a lady but let’s just put it this way: she saw WWII come and go, so that should give you a fairly good idea of her age. All my life I’ve seen her smoking the same green and silver packets of menthol cigarettes. One by one as the day goes on she takes cigarettes out, holds them elegantly between her fingers to light them and then I watch as that elegance disappears along with the burning cigarette. She’s been smoking for so long now that I always picture her with a cigarette and smelling of menthols. Unfortunately I really do believe that the only thing she enjoys doing nowadays is smoking; for her it’s not just a habit, it’s part of who she is.
She grew up in a different time: when she was younger tobacco companies were selling most of their products to men, and seeing that the only way to sell more was to get women smoking they began to target their ads at a female audience. Slogans like: “To keep a slender figure no one can deny, reach for a Lucky [Strike] instead of a sweet,” and images of elegant women sitting around and laughing, “enjoying the simple pleasure of Benson and Hedges.” It was no wonder that she started smoking; it was supposedly slimming, was elegant and a woman’s own choice. Now that choice is being taken away from her.
The EU has been cracking down on the tobacco companies for years by reducing the kind of adverts that influenced previous generations and increasing the size of health warnings on the packs. Now they’re pulling out the big guns and are increasing the warnings again to cover 65% of the packet, banning the smaller packs of cigarettes and flavoured tobacco, including menthols. The reason, says the EU, is that the smaller packets and flavoured tobaccos make smoking more accessible and appealing to younger people and by banning them they are reducing the risk of young people taking up smoking.
I can’t say I blame them, according to the statistics 94% of smokers picked up the habit before they turned 25 and, to my shame, my life can corroborate with the facts. When I was 15 I was a smoker, I’d got into the habit by smoking with friends and pretty soon I was spending my dinner money on a pack of 10 to keep in my bag to smoke on the way to and from school.
I didn’t smoke much; maybe 3-5 a day. I didn’t have much money and I had seen too many of the terrifying adverts of people with holes in their throats and heard too many threats from my dad to really take it up, but I liked the way it stopped me from eating and I liked that it was something bad I could do in secret. On and off I smoked for a couple of years. I was getting too many asthma attacks to consider it worth doing anymore so I gave up three times until it stuck. I can honestly say that if the smaller packets hadn’t been available when I was in school I probably wouldn’t have ever smoked more than a couple of cigarettes in my life. Banning the smaller packs is something I definitely believe in, and I can see the wisdom in banning flavours too, but shouldn’t it be a choice to quit smoking just as it is to start?
Menthol smokers everywhere aren’t just going to stop smoking, especially older people like my grandmother who has vowed to never stop smoking and she’s so stubborn we’re not going to even try and persuade her otherwise. My worry is how the ban will affect her: will she start hoarding cartons of cigarettes in the house, turning the place into more of a tobacco warehouse than a suitable living space for an elderly woman? Or will she turn to a life of crime, buying cigarettes on the black market and meeting with shady individuals to get her fix?
I really wouldn’t put it past her, this is the woman who ran what equated to a highly volatile, unlicensed, small brewery in her back garden for over 20 years so I doubt some law from Brussels is going to stop her. Actually, the likelihood is that she will persuade (guilt trip) us, her innocent (well, more innocent than her) grandchildren into buying her the goods; putting cartons of menthols in between our towels and pyjamas on the flights back from America and praying we don’t get caught because we know that if we do and the cigarettes get taken off us our grandmother, forced to give up her beloved menthols, might die.
Okay, she probably won’t die, but maybe I’ll start to buy her those menthol e-cigarettes to wean her off the real stuff just in case.
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2 Comments – Post a comment
The Filter
Commented 31 months ago - 10th October 2013 - 14:44pm
This is a fab article - very well written and a different view on the topic. Keep up the good work untamedclare : )
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Commented 31 months ago - 14th October 2013 - 13:50pm
best article tile EVER !