the relationship between puritanism and moralistic denial of ones urges and political and economic corruption are part of what makes the smoking/addiction/pleasure/money/power/corruption cycle so intriguing and difficult.
In california the # of smokers is at an all time low in part because in its first phase the tobacco tax was used as intended to create information about the hazards in smoking and broadcast them to the public.
interesting funny ads about not just smoking but corporate greed and big tobaccos motivation were run on tv and billboards etc and that cigarette surtax (one of many taxes on cigarettes) was having its intended effect. reducing new smokers and giving others information and motivvation to quit.
ironically, the amount of revenue declined as the program proved effective. for political reasons not clear to me, those effective anti-smoking interventions which revolved around the concept that more speech was better speech and honest descriptions of the facts were the best policy (and which were dramatically decreasing actual smoking rates) gave way to a prohibition mentality.
the nominal reason was the discovery that second hand smoke was an additional harm--hence non-smoking areas and then bans--but the cultural subtext points to a complex mixture of motivations. I grant that second hand smoke is harmful I didn't smoke around my kid or pregnant wife for that reason. But the revulsion and rage from the anti-smokers has the same peculiar emotional tone as the homophobic rage of similarly situated puritans.
I'm not a historian of smoking/tobacco/public policy and have spent more of my life quit or quitting than smoking regularly but my gut feeling is that the most threatening element to both the cigarette companies and the moralist/puritans was honesty.
the puritan by character must live in a state of at least partial denial at all times. denial of his or her own urges to pleasure and gratification, denial of the good in obtaining pleasure etc. the act of puritanical banning of the desired object has all sorts of parallels with the treatment of sexuality and the closeted urge being most viciously repressed/oppressed by those lacking the capacity to honestly view their own desires.
and of course there is money too. In this capitalistic culture--the desire for money & power is the celebrated urge--the least denied. Pleasures and desires which don't require the exercise of power and control over others seem to be the most frightening to both the puritans and the owners of capital.
the capitalist economy and the command economy both thrive on depriving people of a free/cheap/self administered gratification which does no harm to others (just look at the massive economic / political miasma of the so called drug war) and then selling commodified replacement products that almost replace that need or creating black market/criminalization/arrest imprisonment cycles.
the e-cig ban argument is all too similar to other drug controversies in the society and is at root driven by similar social and cultural dynamics.
the irony here is that cigarette smoking--a sort of american home grown U.S. exported commodity replacement for who knows what original sacred relationship to plant/earth/fire --is both good business, bad public health policy and a fountainhead of money which attracts both big tobacco, big pharma (a.k.a. corporations) big government in their service and moralistic puritans afraid of original desire.
hot stuff.
in terms of campaigning--yes i think i posted this in the right forum--the interesting question is about how we can elevate the level of honesty in this campaign.
honesty and truth--old fashioned i know--have an uncanny way of bringing light to dark places. Let's not concern ourselves with how can we best "sell" e-cigarettes, or better brand them as personal vaporizers, nicotine inhalers etc to make them more palatable to the powers that be.
Let's be frank. most people using e-cigarettes are are addicted to nicotine and we derive pleasure from its consumption. Let's make it clear that we have a natural right to pleasure and while there is most likely a deeper desire masked by our own addiction--we haven't found our way to it.
anyway--those are my late night intermittently vape driven thoughts for now...
In california the # of smokers is at an all time low in part because in its first phase the tobacco tax was used as intended to create information about the hazards in smoking and broadcast them to the public.
interesting funny ads about not just smoking but corporate greed and big tobaccos motivation were run on tv and billboards etc and that cigarette surtax (one of many taxes on cigarettes) was having its intended effect. reducing new smokers and giving others information and motivvation to quit.
ironically, the amount of revenue declined as the program proved effective. for political reasons not clear to me, those effective anti-smoking interventions which revolved around the concept that more speech was better speech and honest descriptions of the facts were the best policy (and which were dramatically decreasing actual smoking rates) gave way to a prohibition mentality.
the nominal reason was the discovery that second hand smoke was an additional harm--hence non-smoking areas and then bans--but the cultural subtext points to a complex mixture of motivations. I grant that second hand smoke is harmful I didn't smoke around my kid or pregnant wife for that reason. But the revulsion and rage from the anti-smokers has the same peculiar emotional tone as the homophobic rage of similarly situated puritans.
I'm not a historian of smoking/tobacco/public policy and have spent more of my life quit or quitting than smoking regularly but my gut feeling is that the most threatening element to both the cigarette companies and the moralist/puritans was honesty.
the puritan by character must live in a state of at least partial denial at all times. denial of his or her own urges to pleasure and gratification, denial of the good in obtaining pleasure etc. the act of puritanical banning of the desired object has all sorts of parallels with the treatment of sexuality and the closeted urge being most viciously repressed/oppressed by those lacking the capacity to honestly view their own desires.
and of course there is money too. In this capitalistic culture--the desire for money & power is the celebrated urge--the least denied. Pleasures and desires which don't require the exercise of power and control over others seem to be the most frightening to both the puritans and the owners of capital.
the capitalist economy and the command economy both thrive on depriving people of a free/cheap/self administered gratification which does no harm to others (just look at the massive economic / political miasma of the so called drug war) and then selling commodified replacement products that almost replace that need or creating black market/criminalization/arrest imprisonment cycles.
the e-cig ban argument is all too similar to other drug controversies in the society and is at root driven by similar social and cultural dynamics.
the irony here is that cigarette smoking--a sort of american home grown U.S. exported commodity replacement for who knows what original sacred relationship to plant/earth/fire --is both good business, bad public health policy and a fountainhead of money which attracts both big tobacco, big pharma (a.k.a. corporations) big government in their service and moralistic puritans afraid of original desire.
hot stuff.
in terms of campaigning--yes i think i posted this in the right forum--the interesting question is about how we can elevate the level of honesty in this campaign.
honesty and truth--old fashioned i know--have an uncanny way of bringing light to dark places. Let's not concern ourselves with how can we best "sell" e-cigarettes, or better brand them as personal vaporizers, nicotine inhalers etc to make them more palatable to the powers that be.
Let's be frank. most people using e-cigarettes are are addicted to nicotine and we derive pleasure from its consumption. Let's make it clear that we have a natural right to pleasure and while there is most likely a deeper desire masked by our own addiction--we haven't found our way to it.
anyway--those are my late night intermittently vape driven thoughts for now...
