Off the Cuff: Do smokers have rights?

Write about the evils of smoking and readers usually respond, saying UAE should ban it, but there's always one lone voice asking for his rights.

I feel sorry for the smokers in our society today. We confine them to smoking rooms in office buildings or we make their life miserable and make them trudge down the stairs and out into the open whenever they have the urge to get their nicotine fix.

You see them behind glass doors in the smoking rooms, drawing the relaxing smoke deep into their lungs and ecstatically exhaling slowly.

There are signs everywhere in malls, cinemas and universities that keep these species from lighting up. "No Smoking by law. One heck of a huge fine if you are caught smoking here", warn the cruel signs, that have a cigarette and large slashes in red across it.

Slowly, we are driving the smokers away from us and in the near future they will go hide in the forests and the deserts, re-group, find a leader who can speak without coughing long enough, and then attack us sissies who want to live longer.

We are turning man against man, sorry, persons against persons, because of our cussed self-righteous insistence that we want clean air for our obese children.

I say that this is no way of dealing with the smokers' problems. We have to understand that they were not like this once upon a time.

They too were once like us. Long ago, they too could actually taste what junk food really tastes like because of their baby-fresh nasal passages and the rosy taste buds on their tongues. Until, evil befell upon them.

But the scene was different some years ago. The people we shun today were the heroes of yesteryears. Smokers were the suave bunch of people, those with a joie de vivre, or the joy of living, as the French would say.

They lit up their cigarettes with a slim, gold lighter and you immediately knew you were dealing with a sophisticated person, a man of the world, who would blow smoke in your face, knit his eye brows and tell you what exactly is wrong with the world.

Fashion statement

In Hollywood movies, you knew immediately that the smoker will get his girl. You knew that the couple have clicked, so to speak, when the hero quickly draws out his lighter from his pocket and lights up the girl's cigarette, all the while gazing into her eyes through the cloud of smoke. That setting alone was enough to draw hordes of teenagers to turn to smoking.

I am not sure who first cultivated tobacco and who was responsible for making this weed into a fashion statement (you will have to look up that yourself), but back in my hometown, hakims, or unlicensed quacks, would suggest that you smoke if you feel bloated with gas after a heavy meal.

"It will help you relax and you can concentrate on your studies," said one hakim, handing me a cigarette which had the name of a famous landmark of the city.

Now, I hear that there are plans in the GCC states to increase the taxation on cigarettes and tobacco products, maybe even double the price.

Some people believe that's a good idea since the smokers won't be with us for long, they should pay double the tax and the revenue can be put to good use, like building colonies for surviving smokers away from the rest of us.

Some experts suggest that we save the smokers from themselves and help them quit the habit.

But that is not a good idea: there's nothing worse than a smoker that is trying to give up smoking. The person usually makes life hell for everyone around him or her.