Pernicious weed
 It is strange
to remember that, not long ago, the smoking and chewing of tobacco was
a common phenomenon and not one to which any reasonable person could take
exception.
In the popular dramas of the inter-war years, part of the action of
a play was arranged by a character lighting up a cigarette to relieve
or intensify the atmosphere aroused by the script. Individuals with a
cigarette drooping from a lax mouth were to be seen at every turn, and
the cigar or the pipe was considered a sign of advanced age, business
success or social superiority.
It is no longer quite so simple. Personally, I feel disgust whenever
I come across a photograph of one of my ancestors smoking, and much of
modern society feels little sympathy with a smoker.
We tend to forget that the filthy side of smoking is not a new concept.
Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew fair' (1614) contains the lines: "The lungs
of the tobacconist are rotted, the liver spotted, the brain smoked like
the backside of the pig-woman's booth here and the whole body within,
black as her pan you saw e'en now without." And he remarks later: "Neither
do thou lust after that tawney weed tobacco."
Despite savage criticism, including that of James I in his famous "Counterblast"
of 1604, tobacco maintained its malign influence, sustained by governments
and industrialists who continued to make fortunes from it. Even now, when
more is known of its effects than ever before, tobacco has its advocates
and continues to avoid stern suppression as an addictive drug.
Passive smoking has become a major issue. An editorial in The Lancet
for 27 July refers to a paper published by the International Agency for
Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, offering
further evidence that second-hand or environmental tobacco smoke is carcinogenic.
There is a significant association between lung cancer and smoke exposure
from a spouse, and between lung cancer and smoke exposure at work. As
yet there is no clear evidence that children exposed to parental smoke
have an increased cancer risk. Overall, tobacco kills 4.2 million people
annually, and WHO predicts a rise to 10 million "if robust steps to curb
the epidemic are not taken immediately."
A paper published in the British Medical Journal for 27 July,
from the University of California, San Francisco, covering material gathered
from the United States, Australia, Canada and Germany, concludes that
in totally smoke-free workplaces, the prevalence of smoking is reduced
by 3.8 per cent, with 3.1 per cent fewer cigarettes being smoked per day
per continuing smoker. The designation of a workplace as one where smoking
is forbidden not only eliminates the hazard of passive smoking for staff
who do not follow the habit, but also makes it easier for would-be smokers
to reduce or discard the habit. If all workplaces were made smoke-free
zones, tobacco consumption in the US would be reduced by 4.5 per cent
and in the United Kingdom by 7.6 per cent per head, a more effective health
outcome than raising the tax on tobacco products.
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