Toronto has finally caught up to New York in its ban against smoking in all public, for-profit establishments, and bars are wringing their hands. What better opportunity could I get to finally quit cigarettes for good? Well, mostly for good. As soon as June 1st (the date for the ban to come into effect) rolls around, my smoking habits should be confined to emergencies only-like, say, waiting for term marks to appear on ROSI, or maybe if my favourite CBC drama This Is Wonderland is ever cancelled.
As soon as I can’t smoke in bars, what the hell is the point? Let’s be honest: smoking at home is lame and depressing. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a social activity-
ideally paired with drinking-that gives you something to put in your mouth so you can pause while you mentally compose sentences. I wouldn’t have started at all without good, old-fashioned peer pressure. Also, smoking at home, even if it’s just one or two a day, makes even the walls smell like the inside of a coffin. And there are obvious problems with being an outdoor smoker in Canada: doing it on a sunny patio is fine, but there’s nothing more pathetic than standing outside in subzero temperatures just to get your nicotine fix.
It’s obvious now that, rather than giving you that aura of coolness that it used to, being a smoker actually makes you into a total social pariah. In our health-and-lifestyle obsessed society, not maximizing your physical potential is the equivalent of what a lack of manners was forty years ago. Movie stars would rather be seen injecting Botox, or hell, even snorting coke, than smoking.
And as its coolness dissipates, we’re coming to realize that the cigarette is really a huge failure as a drug. It’s a mild stimulant with an inefficient method of delivery, for which the long-term effects are severe. Anything from peyote to Tylenol delivers more. At least if you’re a heroin addict, you’re able to offset the risk of overdose and death with ridiculously intoxicating pleasure (or so I’ve heard).
The only reason to keep paying the exorbitant prices for cigarettes, to keep on being subjected to the barrage of bleeding-lung imagery on the front of the package, is if you’re already on a dedicated path of self-destruction to begin with. My friend Tom has a morbid hatred of the idea of “personal wellness” and relishes the fact that his chain-smoking makes him a social outlaw. “I will only stop smoking,” he told me the other day, “when the physical effects of it actually appear.” So, when you actually get cancer, you’ll stop? “Yup.” I love Tom, because I just know he’ll live to 95-and hate every minute of it.
Personally, nothing will stop me from becoming newly squeaky-clean, model member of society. Just tell me where to sign up for that Botox.
Will Torontonians continue to smoke, or will they follow the lead of New Yorkers and ditch the habit in record numbers? The inquiring minds at The Varsity want to know. Write to tell us how the ban will affect (or not) your dirty little habit-or if you’ll be hitting the bar more often now that it will be filled with only clean(-ish) city air.
