My opinions on smoking

Hello everyone!

This is my first blog of this year. Yet again, there have been numerous things that have come up, such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the aftermath, that I have intended to write about and somehow not got around to. I'm sorry. I want to keep this updated as frequently as I can, as it keeps me motivated to continue trying to achieve social change, and I actually think that I am a pretty good writer. I get good feedback from people, and when I re-read what I have done I am generally quite proud of it. I'd like to become a more frequent political writer and commentator, and I'd certainly like my blog to get more hits, which I know I can only do if I actually bother to keep it updated. Unfortunately, there are many other things that have been consuming my time and energy lately, and sometimes this blog gets left by the wayside.

However, there are certain moments when I know that I have to write, if anything as therapy for me as much as for others to read. There is a particular subject that I have intended to discuss on here for a few months. A while back, I re-read my first ever blog, back in 2010. I sound very young and amateurish there, but whilst introducing myself one paragraph caught my eye:

'I'm not scared of anyone. I'm not intimidated by anyone. I'm very fiery, volatile and outspoken - for better or for worse. I have some very controversial views on freedom, science and particularly smoking.'

Whilst much of that is still true, I wrote it at 17 and now I am 21, so naturally I have grown and matured quite a lot. The passage on smoking was particularly noteworthy to me. I have rarely mentioned it on here since, mainly because it is a very personal issue for me, and I find it hard to take an objective and balanced viewpoint on it. Nevertheless, it does occur to me that it may be very beneficial, both for myself and for my readers, for me to write about my viewpoint on it. Before I start, I must clarify that the next several paragraphs will focus almost entirely on my own experiences - later I will try to talk a bit more objectively as I realise that I can't write a political blog based entirely on something personal, but I have to start out with that, I think. So here goes:

Smoking is the worst thing in the world.

Right, well obviously my opinion is more complex than that, but that is the bare bones of it. I can already anticipate the questions that will be thrown in my direction in response to that statement: Why, George? Out of all the corruption and suffering in the world, why denounce smoking as being worse than everything else? I must just clarify that that statement is entirely subjective; of course I don't seriously think that it is worse to smoke than to do literally anything else in the world, when you actually get down to reasonable and objective opinion. But if you go past the logical part of my brain to what is deeply ingrained within me, on a really personal level there is absolutely nothing I loathe more.

I suffer from severe capnophobia, which is defined as 'An intense hatred, or fear, of smoking or having anyone around who is polluting the air in the immediate vicinity with tobacco smoke; whether from cigarettes, cigars, pipe, or from any similar process of smoke distribution'. I have lived with this since around the age of nine, and over time it has grown worse than it was when it started. I used to be able to deal with smoke a lot better - I was adamantly against people doing it and would cough a lot if exposed to it, but I didn't suffer from extreme lasting reactions beyond being exposed to it and I didn't avoid being in a room with people who had been doing it recently. These things are both the case now. If I am walking along a crowded street, I subconsciously look at people's hands instead of their faces. If I'm exposed to it for any length of time, I suffer nausea-like symptoms, my eyes run a bit, I find it hard to speak and to breathe normally and this can last for a long time after the smoke has passed. I think it has lasted around two hours.

I feel that as far as I am concerned, this is a bit of a double issue. My psychological fear is real and present, but that is not the only thing to it. I believe that I have done so much to avoid being exposed to tobacco smoke in any way at all that I do not have the physical resistance that most people do. I may be wrong about this, but I think that if someone from a country where there was no smoke came over here, they may not be as afraid of it as I am, but physiologically their reactions would be very similar. It's a catch-22 situation really: the fear of it I gained as a child has caused me to avoid it, and as I have avoided it I have naturally not had the exposure that most people have. Not having had that exposure has meant that I have little resistance to it, so it affects me more physically, thus fuelling my phobia and making it more severe than it was before. I think it is entirely likely that my sensitivity to smoke will continue to become more intense in the future.

The majority of my friends and acquaintances are aware that I have this problem and their reactions vary, from empathy and understanding to being positively aggressive about it. Everyone who tries to understand means a lot to me, and I really, really appreciate every one of them. However, I don't think that anyone who has not experienced it can fully understand how much of an impact this has on my life. It is more than just the feeling I have when I am around smoke, which is bad enough in itself. I can say, quite truthfully, that every single aspect of my life is completely affected by my capnophobia. It hinders my social life greatly - not just because not everyone is especially pleasant about it (which causes enough problems as it is) but because smoking is such a social rite. If I'm ever with a group of friends in an outdoor location, it is likely that at least one of them will be smoking at any one time, and I have to distance myself from the group as a result. This makes it harder for me to bond with people, and this is most likely a key reason why I am an outsider in the majority of the social groups that I am in - people get on with me and I may even have close friends there, but I generally have a better dynamic with most people when it is just them and I. In a group of many, the smoking culture is too rampant for me to socialise much at all. I can vividly recall a time a few years ago when I was with some friends, and this happened as normal. On this occasion, one of my friends also left the group and came to keep me company. It was such a small thing and my friend probably doesn't even remember it, but I will never forget it because this is an extremely rare thing to happen and the gesture meant so much to me.

Gestures like the one that I have described above are unfortunately very much the exception. The most common reaction is for someone to say something like, 'Yeah, I know people who don't like it' but not actually take in that it is an actual serious issue. This is the sort of person who will offer me a lift somewhere, and if I ask if they'll be smoking, volunteer to open the window. I realise that they aren't being inconsiderate on purpose, but I don't think it really occurs to them how serious an issue this can be. Some friends have given me open hostility - I find it interesting that if someone has a more commonly recognised fear, such as spiders for instance, they seem to be met with sympathy, but if it's tobacco smoke people take this as a personal attack. This is happily rare as well - most people are not actively hostile, but I do meet a lack of consideration a lot. For example, there is a group of people that sometimes I have reason to work with (for obvious reasons, I have to be extremely vague about who these people are and what I do with them), and there is one individual in the group who I actually get on quite well with, but I find it hard to really have respect for them given that they have pretty much prevented me from forming bonds, either personally or professionally, with anyone else there. The reason for this is that every time we are on a break from work, this person will light up, and continue to smoke until we are back to work. This person typically does this whilst chatting to the rest of the group, and I have to remove myself. Don't get me wrong, I am willing to move away from a smoker and I seem to spend quite a lot of my life doing it. But I do not see why it has to be me who always does this.  If someone wishes to smoke, why can't they go off somewhere to do it? They are the one who has caused the situation by making the decision to smoke, I have made no such decision. If my relationships with people are hindered as a result, I find this quite unfair, especially if the person knows my position full well (and they do, generally). In this example, I have not confronted the person, just because I find that in my position you really have to pick your battles. I have lost friendships as a result of this, and if I confronted people every single time, I'd do nothing else but talk about it.

So these are my experiences, and I realise that the majority of this blog has been subjective, but I cannot get on to what I am about to say without that. I would not outlaw tobacco smoking entirely (although if a Government was about to do that, I would certainly not try to prevent this) but I think that the laws we have at the moment need to be far more stringent. I am happy about the fact that it would appear as though the laws are gradually changing where that is concerned, not as much as I would like but that's a moot point. In 2007, we had the law preventing smoking in enclosed public spaces, which was a long time coming and was an immense relief. Soon it will be illegal to smoke in cars containing children (legislature which I actually cannot believe anyone is arguing against) and my hometown of Bristol has recently become to first UK city to ban smoking in a few outdoor spaces. I think that on the whole, it is a good thing that the world is waking up to the idea of making things easier for people like myself, because the thing that I always remember is that despite what anyone else might say, I am not the only one. I will admit that I am probably in the minority of people to have reactions as extreme as what I go through, but I am not the only person in the world who is affected by this, far from it. I have read accounts of many people who for one reason or other, really have issues with smoke being around them constantly- sometimes their experiences are similar to mine and sometimes they have been very different, but I am entirely able to empathise. I feel that being able to empathise should be something that everyone has, regardless of whether or not it is something that they go through themselves.

Regarding the law, I would push for it to be outlawed in public outdoor spaces. I think that people have a right to be able to leave their own homes without having to feel uncomfortable on the streets. A lot of people say to me, 'But what about cars?' which I do accept is actually a fair point. The two points I would raise in response to that are as follows:

a) Cars have a purpose which tobacco products do not. The benefit that they have to our society is considerably more than anything tobacco does, any benefits of which I would consider to be pretty debatable anyway, and

b) I have not heard of anyone having issues with exhaust fumes in the same way that I know people do with tobacco. This is not to say that people don't have them - it's not something that personally I take such a vested interest in, but if anyone did I would absolutely take steps to try to accommodate for them. I'm not affected personally by exhaust fumes (at least, not much) but having had the experience of people continually turn a blind eye to the position that I find myself in, I will always try to avoid doing that to other people. I'm all for pedestrianism, and if there was a demand for it I would support having more ways that people can walk without coming into contact with many vehicles - I'm not sure how practical that would be with how dependent we are on our vehicles, but we surely can do better than what we are doing at the moment.

I am actually willing to meet people who would like to smoke halfway here, believe it or not. I would entirely discourage it, support plain packaging on cigarettes and socially try to get it out of fashion. However, I will accept that currently there are still people who wish to smoke, and if they'd be willing to meet my view halfway, I will be willing to meet theirs. Privately owned spaces I would consider to be a different matter, within certain conditions. I would have no issue with people smoking inside their own homes, provided that the consent of everyone who lived there was given, and this includes from those who are underage. If someone is not in the position to be able to give consent, as with babies and young children, it must be assumed to be not given. I don't think I'd even mind people smoking in their own gardens - I wouldn't outlaw it straight away anyway, I'd leave it for a bit and see if there was still an issue with it once all the other things came into effect. Since the 2007 law came in, pub gardens are no longer pleasant places to be, which is a bit annoying but I'm willing to put up with that. If a pub owner wishes to allow that, I'm all for it, as those who have issues can remain inside. I do actually want a solution that suits everyone - because of my experiences, I'm so passionately against it in public that perhaps this is not always clear, but I think a fair medium should not be that difficult. And I am aware that my solutions are still not as accommodating towards smokers as they are towards people who wish to avoid it. That is just how things happen; I feel that if someone has made the decision to start smoking, they need to take all of the inconveniences that may come with it, rather than inflict those inconveniences on other people.

Another thing that often comes up is my viewpoint on smoking cannabis. This isn't exactly what this blog is about, but I feel that I ought to touch on it. I do think that it is a major inconsistency that tobacco is legal and cannabis is not, given that tobacco has been proven time and again to be much worse. I will confess that I myself am not fully informed as to the benefits and downsides of using cannabis, so I am probably not the best person to judge this. However, I consider that given the comparisons it would be only fair of me to at least consider it in the same camp as tobacco if that remained legal, if not above it. So I would most likely begin by allowing it on the same terms as tobacco, and in time potentially consider it to be more socially acceptable. But I would have to take advice on that one, as I really am not informed enough to call it fairly.

So there you have it. My opinions on smoking, and how I think it ought to be considered legally. This has been one of the hardest blogs I have ever written, because it is something that affects me personally. I have tried, during the paragraphs where I discuss policy at least, tried to keep my own experience out of it. I do realise absolutely that my phobia should not dictate legislation, and that there are certainly some irrational parts of what I go through that I need to sort out myself. For example, I don't especially enjoy it when people smoke E-cigarettes. I even find it hard to look at people's breath on cold days. This is my personal stuff, and that's something that I need to deal with myself. I can understand that. I am willing to work with other people on this progressively if they are willing to work with me. All too often, people are not willing to work with me on this one, they just seem to think that their opinion is right and I need to put up with it, and I don't think that that helps anyone. And whilst we're on that, I'd like to close this with an important point. Something I quite often hear is, 'George, walking through a cloud of smoke won't kill you.' In response to that, I would say that what I experience when I am around smoke cannot really be put into words - there have been times (thankfully brief) when being alive does not feel especially worth it - but more than that is the lack of empathy I get from people when they find out that I threaten their habit. There seems to be a culture of 'the smoker is in the right, and everyone else must live with it.' Therefore, rather than argue with the science behind passive smoking, in reply to the statement that it will not kill me, I will question whether that person's opinion would change in the slightest if it would.

I shall hopefully do some more blogging soon, if I find the time alongside the play that I am writing and my University course. This being an election year, I hope to talk a lot when that comes up. This will be the first General Election since I started blogging, I began this a couple of months after the last one.

Watch this space x