God Bless The Smoking Man

Written by Frank Nichols

Regardless of your opinion on smoking, it is undeniable that tobacco, and especially cigarettes, have had a profound effect on world culture, and American culture in particular. More so than any other, we have idolized the smoker. The Marlboro Man and Joe Camel are two of the most iconic figures in advertising, and the Cigarette Smoking Man was one of the most compelling characters from the X-Files. Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Sean Connery are three of the greatest smokers in history and why the anti-tobacco lobby will always be wrong when they say smoking isn't cool. Cigarette smokers are the last true emblem of American freedom, and it reeks of irony that they have only achieved this status by having their freedoms stripped away.

It would be foolish not to address the health concerns surrounding smoking cigarettes, and for two reasons: First, it is fairly well undeniable that they are detrimental to your health, and second, it is because of these health risks that the smoker is such a powerful symbol. Apart from the tobacco industry, there is likely no one who might say cigarettes are not harmful, and on some occasions they have admitted this as well. While I personally believe the health risks are a bit overblown, I do not deny that they exist, and in fact I embrace them.

The modern cigarette smoker is aware of all these risks, and they still light up. Risks like these are hard-wired into American DNA, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. We declared Independence from England so that we could do whatever the hell we wanted. After we became Independent, you could worship any god or no god, print whatever anti-government pamphlet you wished. Who better than the smoker to represent doing everything that The Man tells you not to?

You ban us from your public buildings? Fine. We will walk your thirty feet from the door in freezing rain to light up. You pass laws prohibiting us from smoking in the very taverns this country was built in? We will find loopholes, or pay the fine and ignore the unjust law just as our forefathers did. Through the fog of history we have remembered them as patriots, but not for what they truly were: a bunch of bootlegging traitors who didn't want to pay their taxes. Perhaps one day our children's children will look upon cigarette smokers in the same way.

While all smokers fit this bill to a certain degree, it is the “social smoker” who embodies the American spirit the best. This is the group that I proudly fall into. The majority of smokers are addicted to cigarettes, so theirs is not so much a choice as a compulsion. The social smoker truly makes his own decision to pollute his lungs. Just as the Revolutionaries who threw the tea overboard, we make a conscious decision that may prove harmful to our health. Boldly we defy the nanny state who warns us of the dangers. Why do we do it? We do it because it does give us pleasure (even though those Newport ads are god-awful). We do it because it looks cool. We do it because nothing goes with a double Wild Turkey on the rocks like a Camel Wide.

Unfortunately, there are smokers who make the rest of us look bad. There are far too many examples of white trash tooling around in a Camaro with one window cracked chain-smoking USA Golds with a three year old standing in the front seat. People like this should be ashamed of themselves, and do not represent all that is good and right and free about smoking cigarettes.

By and large, smokers can be a considerate bunch. If smoking truly offends you, most will not smoke around you, and if they do they won't blow in your direction. Unless you are in a bar, (in which case you have no right to complain) smokers will often go out of their way not to be around you when they smoke, especially in an enclosed area. By doing so, a tight-knit community develops around smokers, especially those who work together. Just as heavy drinkers do, we congregate around our own, and don't take kindly to intruders. Nobody likes being judged, and this aversion to outsiders strengthens our bonds, and prompts us to do things like write essays on why smokers are the last symbol of freedom in America.

This community of smokers is a large one, with myriad examples of people who have contributed greatly to our culture despite smoking. The best examples of this are musicians. Miles Davis, arguably the greatest trumpet player to have ever lived, was a smoker. The trumpet is extremely taxing on the lungs, and yet he still managed to change the course of music five or six times. For many, a Jazz bar just wouldn't feel right without a thick haze of smoke over the room. With Jazz being one of the only true American music genres, it is a crime that many wish to steal that experience from our progeny. My personal favorite musician, Tom Waits, simply would not be without cigarettes. His voice could only happen because of cigarettes. “Small Change got Rained On (With His Own .38)” is my favorite song to smoke to, and it even begins with the sound of a cigarette being lit. Old Blue Eyes was a heavy smokey, and I defy you to tell me that he wasn't the coolest man to have ever walked the face of the Earth.

Ultimately, what this country is all about is personal freedom, and most importantly, the ability to make your own well-informed choices about how you live your life. Who better than the social smoker to represent this? The more that the nanny state legislates it, the more powerful the symbol of a willful smoker becomes. God bless the Smoking Man.