Do we need to bring back smoking?🚬

A semi-serious look at the lesser of two evils.

I miss smoking.

I know it’s wrong.

I know it was an evil conspiracy perpetuated by Big Tobacco.

I know it will give me cancer but, then again, what doesn’t give you cancer these days? The rates of cancer amongst under 50s in developed countries has skyrocketed since 1990 with early-onset colorectal cancers now the biggest killer of that demographic. Why? Your guess is a good as the oncologists’ who have a list of possibilities including obesity, sedentary lifestyles, processed diets, alcohol, and a “birth cohort effect”, but no concrete conclusions.

And now there is another killer on the loose whose effects are the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Have you heard of it? It’s called loneliness and unlike runaway colorectal cancers we absolutely know the cause.

Photo by Illia Horokhovsky on Unsplash

According to a 2010 meta analysis of multiple studies led by Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad a lack of social connection has an equivalent health impact to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day i.e. it can actually kill you. And according to a whole raft of surveys from the USA to Singapore the leading cause of loneliness is, ironically, the technology that was supposed to connect us all, ha!

For years people claimed smoking was an anti-social habit but I beg to differ. Smoking was the connective tissue of late 20th century society simply because the want of a fag or a light cut right through class lines and self consciousness forcing complete strangers to approach each other and ask for a small kindness, which was almost always given (except to those who smoked only when drunk and thus NEVER purchased a pack of their own).

Smokers are undoubtedly amongst the most generous, creative and fun loving people I have ever met - rebellious souls with constitutions strong enough to suffer daily poison simply to function. They are made of tougher stuff and will brave sleet, snow and hail to get their fix, huddled together beneath umbrellas, bus shelters and shop awnings, embodying the Blitz spirit that kept London going during the darkest days of WWII no less!

As a media salesman in the mid-noughties the best way to meet a “decision maker” was always at the smoking corner of any industry conference or exhibition where their flunkies dare not intrude on the boss’s private respite but strangers were always welcome to pass the time of day.

When I worked in a thirty story building on Euston Road in London I got to know someone on nearly every floor through our shared love of Marloboro Lights (THE city cigarette), and on a Friday those fellow passengers on the nicotine express would inevitably stop into the local pubs and clubs, turning the entire venue into one big local. Now, the smokers have to go home to enjoy a puff and the Gen Zers don’t drink at all so watering holes from Singapore to Soho are shutting up shop, slowing the economy and leaving even fewer locations for strangers to meet and make merry.

My nan, like yours or one you know, smoked at least forty-a-day well into her eighties before she passed NOT of lung cancer whereas my best friend is facing his fate at just forty-six despite quitting the fags around thirty, so what really was the point? He may as well have continued to indulge his smokey pleasure because its probably the microplastics that will do for him in the end!

I quit when I was thirty and now I couldn’t start again even if I wanted to. For all the free will and freedom of expression we’re allegedly entitled to in the developed world, try lighting a cigarette anywhere and see how you’re treated. Oh, and don’t expect to get reasonable health cover or life insurance for your family either - you’d be better off applying as a base-jumping cave diver with a sideline in crocodile wrestling. Oh, but if you drink 10 pints a night and eat Mickey D’s three times a day? No problem, climb aboard sailor - the premiums are cheap!

So here’s my idea - if social media is increasing the risk of death from loneliness by the equivalent of 15 cigarettes per day shouldn’t doctors prescribe 14 as a cure? As Oasis - who brought millions together over cigarettes and alcohol last summer - sang, you gotta make it ‘appen!

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

I’ve been trapped at home for nearly two weeks following a minor surgery so I’ve gone podcast crazy, here’s what I’ve been listening to:

• James Marriott is my favourite columnist in The Times (of London); a perceptive and eloquent observer of modern life and still only 33 years old. He is a passionate advocate for the value of reading and has produced a podcast with BBC Radio 4 to accompany his forthcoming book ‘The New Dark Ages’. Listen to ‘How Reading Made Us’ in all the usual places.

• Rutger Bregman is amongst my favourite historians (as a “centrist dad” I’m a devout listener to ‘The Rest Is History’ with with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook #obvs). His series of Reith Lectures - an annual series of lectures commissioned by the BBC since 1948 - are an inspiring instruction guide and call to action on how to actually make the world a better place.

• Stuck at home I have also, inevitably, been watching Netflix and Prime and would like to recommend an American horror series by the ‘Stranger Things’ team called ‘Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen’ on the former. And an edgy new British sitcom(?) from British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed called ‘Bait’ on Prime. In it, he also plays an actor who finds his life spiraling out of control after he is rumored to be in consideration for the role of James Bond. Here’s the trailer also featuring the always hilarious Guz Khan.

• Also, Basement is my new favourite Britrock band in this is the first single from their upcoming album ‘Wired’ and I love it:

Right, I’m finally allowed out this weekend so that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx