Dani Garavelli: Smoke and mirrors

Published on Saturday 24 May 2008 20:17

ONE of the few things I remember clearly about my dad is that he smoked John Player Navy Cut cigarettes. I can picture the boxes – featuring the sailor in the cap – his tobacco-stained fingers and the way he stubbed them out with his shoes.

I guess I thought smoking was a good thing back then simply because he did it. Certainly, the black and white photographs that show him with frizzy Dylanesque hair and a cigarette dangling casually from his hand, make him look impossibly cool. The sight of cigarettes on television shows and in adverts made smoking seem alluring too: pouting women in chic frocks, with cigarettes that seemed to be extensions of their elegant fingers; intense, brooding men who blew the smoke up past their noses in a gesture of defiance.

Later on, I recall less enticing images: my grandmother's ashtray full of stubs, yellowing wallpaper and an elderly aunt's protracted battle with emphysema.

Those were the influences that played on me as I stood on the brink of adulthood deciding whether or not to join the ranks of the smoker. Of course, I tried cigarettes. Everyone did. I smoked a few in the park because my friends were doing it. And I smoked a few at parties because it gave me something to do with my hands. But I guess my dislike of the smell and the taste must have overcome the desire to fit in because, quite quickly, I decided cigarettes were not for me.

One thing that had absolutely no impact on whether or not I smoked, was the sight of cigarette boxes on shop shelves. I was aware of them, of course, next to the sweeties. But their effect was neutral. They were of interest to the young only if cigarettes were already a source of fascination.

Today, these displays are the focus of the Scottish Government's latest onslaught on smokers. Working on the premise that out of sight is out of mind – rather than the more convincing maxim that there is nothing more seductive than forbidden fruit – they want to force shopkeepers to stock cigarettes under the counter, handing them over like objects of illicit desire.

Please, don't misunderstand me. I am not one of these rabid campaigners who champions the act of smoking as if it were a symbol of our dwindling civil liberties. I am all for trying to persuade people to take the healthy option: to quit the fags, cut down on drinking and eat more healthily, through public information campaigns – as long as the individual's right to treat said campaigns with contempt is observed.

I supported the ban on smoking in public places because there was a point to it – the creation of a smoke-free environment for those who have no desire to inhale other people's fumes. But I don't believe in empty gestures that do little more than express a political party's disgust with other people's perceived vices.

Of course, the SNP claims its motives are worthy. It says taking cigarettes off the shelves will deter teenagers from experimenting with them; it will remove temptation from the path of those who are trying to quit; and no doubt it will make hardened smokers forget all about their addiction. Whereas, everyone knows hiding them away will only make them more attractive; that those who cannot pass a vending machine without slipping in a couple of pounds were never serious about giving up in the first place; and that a real smoker deprived of the next nicotine hit will climb through their neighbour's window and ransack their drawers in search of a drag. Having to go into a newsagent and ask for an under-the-counter product is unlikely to halt them in their tracks.

In any case, there is something so random about this proposal. Why just cigarettes? Why not beer and sweets and pork pies and newspapers with articles on Simon Cowell? And what about all the other btes noires of modern life – televisions and games consoles and celebrity magazines?

And pornography. How can you take seriously a policy that judges the sight of a row of cigarette boxes a greater threat to children than magazines that degrade women for the gratification of men? Especially since you only have to look at pornography for it to have an impact, whereas, with cigarettes you have to buy and smoke them before they can do you any harm.

The same lack of logic applies to other aspects of the SNP proposal. It plans to force shopkeepers to apply for a cigarette licence similar to that required to sell alcohol. But such a scheme would only work if the authorities were willing to act against those who break the law. Earlier this year, a report by the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland showed only three of 51 shopkeepers who served minors were reported to the procurator fiscal.

As for the notion of scrapping 10-pack boxes, it could just about work. But it could just as easily lead to those who would normally have smoked 10, smoking 20 instead.

Overriding all these arguments is the sense that, if teenagers aren't put off cigarettes by the knowledge they will make them smell and taste bad, and possibly give them lung cancer; if they don't find the words SMOKING KILLS splashed across the front sufficiently off-putting; then it's unlikely they will be deterred by shopkeepers moving them a few inches.

Scottish politicians are obsessed with smoking to the virtual exclusion of other social ills. Perhaps it's a class thing. But if they really believe cigarettes should be wiped off the face of the earth, they should forgo the tax revenue and ban them completely. Until they are brave – or stupid – enough to go the whole hog, they should let those who want to light up do so in law-abiding peace.