A good kick in the butt

March 29th is D-Day – the date on which the smoking ban becomes a reality in Ireland. The measure has been the source of considerable controversy and recrimination here over the past few months – and even as the day looms feelings still run high.

Smokers have argued vehemently that they are being treated as second-class citizens – pariahs, who will be forced out into the open, even in the most inclement weather, if they want to pursue their chosen pleasure of sucking the nicotine. It is a civil rights issue, they charge. We should be entitled to smoke if we want to, even if we are – allegedly – killing ourselves in the process. Down with the health fascists!
Yeah, but you don’t have the right to do it at the expense of others who frequent bars, clubs and restaurants, the counter-view runs. People who don’t smoke have a right to enjoy a smoke-free atmosphere when they go for a meal. They should not have to feel, every time they want to visit the local for a drink, that they are being force-fed second hand cigarette smoke emitted by others.
Publicans and other members of the Irish Hospitality Alliance, meanwhile, mounted a different kind of campaign against the imminent ban. Who’s going to police it, they asked? It shouldn’t be left to the owner of the bar, who is reliant on the good will of his – or her – customers. It isn’t practical. It isn’t just. And it isn’t fair to expect us to take responsibility for doing work that is more properly the provenance of the Gardai.
They threatened a constitutional challenge. Now, that has fizzled out, as it was always likely to do, and after all of the shouting and the invective, we are left with the reality – the ban is coming and there ain’t nothing anyone can do to turn the tide back. The debate could have gone on forever and the different sides would have been no nearer agreement – or even compromise. It was an argument in which any reconciliation of opposing points of view was by definition impossible – but it is over now. From here on, the only question is this: how will people deal with the ban?
It is a problem primarily for smokers – who in truth and somewhat ironically, have the most to gain from the new measure. No matter how vociferously they may have argued against the imposition of the ban, and for smoking as a civil right, there isn’t a single smoker who wouldn’t, deep down, prefer to be free of the addiction to nicotine. Ask any smoker if he or she would want their children in turn to smoke, and the answer is always, invariably, no – who would wish a dependency of this kind on their own?
So why not try to see it as a positive development? Rather than using it as a platform to rail against the increasing restrictiveness of Irish society – and, incidentally, there is more than a hint of validity in that wider charge – smokers might usefully embrace it as a genuine opportunity to cut down their consumption, or if possible to give up the demon weed entirely.
Easily said, but far less easily done, it’s true, especially for the legendary man at the bar with the ball of malt and the twenty Woodbine. It is clear, however, that the ban on smoking in the workplace, which has been in operation in most offices in Ireland, over the past number of years, has been an encouragement to smokers to reduce their consumption. Many smokers have used that to their advantage by cutting down on their intake during the day. Now that momentum can be extended into the evening.
It is a matter of approaching it in the most constructive possible spirit. The point is to fuck it, and go for it. Rather than feeling aggrieved and responding in a petulant way, make the effort. It may not be easy, but it is possible even for the most hardened nicotine addict to quit. In going for it, you have nothing to lose but your dependency (OK and your temper along the way, if you have one, but you will be forgiven for that!)…
The smoking ban may have started as an imposition – and doubtless there are many who will continue to see it as such. But it might just be the best thing that could possibly have happened to – and for – smokers. This is especially true of the thousands of young smokers who have started in the past few years. The incentive is there. A life free of addiction to nicotine is a better life.
Now is the time to say goodbye to all that.