Thank you for smoking
(pipe, of course)

Dear America,

You will remember that the history of smoking had its roots in your hemisphere.
For the Indians it was surrounded by a near-religious cult or, at least by symbolic meanings.
After the art of "drinking smoke" had been brought to Europe by the seafaring nations, it began its long evolution as a stimulant.
Smoking has always had its highs and lows. From being banned under threat of lip-amputation to the high art of after dinner enjoyment.
What you experience now is:

Almost half a million cancer-caused deaths are attributed to smoking, not to mention the social health costs.
The ongoing anti smoking campaign from slips into witch-burning discrimination to grotesque law suits reeks strongly of another episode in your history, the prohibition. The ban of alcohol, too, had its source in a lack of cultural understanding on how to make proper moderate use of a stimulant. Have a look at other nations, who'd rather have a fine glass of wine along with their food than brown coloured sugar water. You can unashamedly drink alcohol if you understand that it is neither to quench your thirst with nor to get inebriated from. The Italians know how to enjoy their wine, you hardly ever see drunks in their streets.

Now as then, you are chopping down the tree rather than removing the rotten leaves!

What has hardly ever been mentioned during the entire anti-smoking inquisition is the fact that smoking, limited to moderate enjoyment, need never have caused the health problems that so irritate the public in many countries today.

To explain how and why, let me show you what kind of smoking I mean.
First of all what 95% of the victims of smoke-related disease have done is not really "smoking". At best, they have been burning tobacco stuffed in paper at a very high temperature. Smoking is an art which has to be learned to be enjoyed and as such it is not habit-forming. "Smoking" cigarettes is hardly that. The true smoker follows a continuous evolution. From the weeds we used to light in the forest when we were kids via the inevitable first adolescent cigarette to the ripe after-dinner Havana in a top restaurant. You have become a smoker when you have mastered the art of smoking a pipe or an occasional cigar, not before. Or would you liken the wailing of a baby to an aria sung by Maria Callas?

I've been smoking pipes since I was 20 years old. Now at 65, I find that my relevant blood parameters come out with flying colours. But like other "thinking smokers" I can leave it for weeks at a time and I limit my smoking to go with coffee at the end of a meal or to help me collect my thoughts.

Authorities seem to agree that moderate pipe-smoking will not result in the terrible consequences that tens of thousands of cigarette-burners experience every year. This may be due mainly to the radically different chemistry and physics of pipe-smoking.
First of all you do not inhale pipe smoke. Why should you? You do not have any taste buds in your lungs.
Then the temperature of glowing tobacco in a pipe is clearly lower than in a cigarette. Apparently this results in less tars and other noxious components. Finally, there is always a rest of tobacco sitting at the bottom of a finished pipe. You probably throw away more chemical residue with that plug than any high-tech filter can remove from a cigarette.

Just as significant is the fact that you smoke a pipe consciously and with pride. While cigarette addicts can "light one" subconsciously, it takes a little care and thought to get a pipe going. While cigarette-burners throw their butt into the gutter without even realising it, pipe smokers cherish their expensive briar for a lifetime. They will clean and polish it and show it to their friends telling its story. The difference is like between a whore and a wife for life.

When coming to you, America, I strongly resent being thrown into the same category as the cigarette-burners. No distinction is made between pipe-smokers and fag-addicts anywhere I go. On the contrary: If anything, pipe-smokers get more of the bashing as the following story will illustrate.

On board a Swiss airliner an inflight argument developed between a cigarette-burner and a pipe-smoker, each accusing the other to make the air unbreathable. As the argument evolved into a fight, the captain de-boarded both knuckleheads at the next stopover.
As was to be expected, the outcome was a new regulation on board all Swissair flights. Guess what! A total ban of smoking would have been acceptable to all reasonable smokers but not to the cigarette-addicts. So they disallowed pipes and continued allowing cigarettes. This is the $$majority$$ solution to the problem, because pipes make up less than 5 percent. Unfortunately most other airlines followed the SWR expample.
This soap opera was preceded by an anecdote about Bing Crosby being asked to refrain from smoking his pipe on board a continental US flight. The story goes that Bing went right on puffing until the landing, when he speedily went about his business to purchase the airline.

Yours truly,

Felix Voirol

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