I knew Britney Spears was in trouble when I saw her smoking a Marlboro and holding on to the full-blooded Marlboro red pack. Those aren’t the kind of cigarettes you’d expect to see in the hands of a professional singer-dancer. For one thing, it takes a lot of stamina to keep up with the demands of just one 3 ½ minute dance. Imagine a 90 minute performance – its close to an Olympic performance. So it’s a huge act of defiance on her part to be out there smoking.
The fact that she chose full-blooded Marlboro was a compelling statement that she was morbidly defiant of the regimentation of her life. This is the soldier’s brand and she was saying, I want to go AWOL. And in a lot of ways she did. She may be a kind of latter day Michael Jackson – someone whose childhood was taken from them while they performed, and now they are pining in a sadly dysfunctional way, for their loss.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
How Come School Killers Don’t Seem to Smoke?
by Alan Brody
After the horrific shootings, there is always a swarm of agents with alphabet soup windbreakers that rummage through the wreckage. Leading this group is the BATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is generally there to find casings and match them to the weapons.
It’s hard to imagine how much difference this information will make since we already know who the shooter was and just how legally they got their top of the line weapon technology.
So why aren’t they making good use of their time on the "A" and the "T" - looking for alcohol bottles and discarded cigarette butts? Granted, psychopaths seem to shun alcohol on their highly organized trails of retribution. But what about cigarettes?
Good and bad people - even sober judges - smoke. So how come there never seems to be a trail of smoldering butts? No unfinished Marlboros to mark their High Noon moment? Never a cruel cigarillo to show their contempt for society and its second-hand smoke regulations?
This is not just the Virginia Tech killer, the mad boys of Columbine seemed to be similarly abstemious. Then there is the shooting at Pearl, Miss., Jacksboro, Tenn. - and even the Amish country schoolhouse where I just can’t think of any one of them puffing on a stick, Bogey-like. John Hinckley shot Reagan with nary a puff, ditto for Chapman with John Lennon.
It seems like bad form to talk cigarettes at a time like this, although Virginia Tech’s shooter Cho, did mention Hitler, and Hitler as we know, was a non-smoker. (A vegetarian too, but that is another issue).
Is this to suggest that smoking a pack or two a day might have helped? Maybe - studies like the St. Louis survey and a recent American Journal of Psychiatry paper show that smoking and depression are profoundly linked.
The Secret Service psychologist, Dr. Robert Fein, in his study of stalkers and assassins, called the "Exceptional Case Study,” agrees. He adds there is another connected and recurring issue in the profiles of these diverse killers – with the possible exception of Hitler: that they were all at first suicidal. Once they had accepted their own demise, everything else in their terrible quests seemed to fit in rather nicely.
Now cigarettes, that much maligned flourish of youth, have the reputation, at least as far as former secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph A. Califano, Jr. is concerned, as being little more than a form of slow-motion suicide. Normally, you’d agree - who wants to be suicidal? But now we know what suicidal and depressed people can do once you free them of their bad habits, smoking may not be such a terrible thing after all.
Most reports, including those on the ASH.org website will tell you that 88% or so, of smokers have started by age 18. Except for these fellows, of course. (And it usually is fellows.) Obviously, smoking serves as a much needed form of initiation and these outcasts seem to have missed the boat.
Maybe we should invite them back. There’s something to be said for the idea of troubled people taking their suicide in slow, twenty minute increments rather than letting go in a hail of gunfire. Second-hand smoke may be a small price to pay. Besides, these shooters tend have been prescribed antidepressents but then stop taking their meds. That never happens with smokers – once they’re hooked they keep taking their smokes like clockwork.
So maybe we need to rethink the value of smoking. Of course, this would take some revisionist compromising. But dusting off the old “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Glock” campaign is worth another look. And Lucky Strikes could be a good thing in a world of calculating psychopaths. Kool could have done just that - cooled a killer down. Camel - that could have meant nothing more than a trip to the zoo.
Realistically though, our current cigarette brands aren’t quite suicidal enough. We may have to develop a more compelling, more clinically informed family of brands that communicate the idea: “Why shoot me when you could be smoking one of these bad boys?”
This is not necessarily a call for the resurrection of the tobacco companies. After all, Philip Morris recently left New York in a puff as mounting taxes and regulation seemed to pull the rug under their Park Ave. welcome. So they moved their headquarters back to Richmond, Virginia which didn’t help the situation anyway. Apparently, easy guns trump easy cigarettes.
What we really need are prescription-strength cigarettes that health professionals can custom-design for troubled souls. We could call them Cig-Rx. They could have clinical names like Pufficide DX, or 2 Paxil-a-Day. Or they could go to the heart of the problem with displacement fantasy brands like Death Rays, Anti-Harmony, Bad Deeds, My Punishment and the freshly mentholated, Unhappy Days. These solutions are cheap, generate taxes and nourish our farmlands.
All of this really happening anyway, we just don’t control it properly. Psychcentral.com reports that doctors Cheong, Herkov & Goodman found in the St. Louis study, that depressed smokers use their cigarettes quite successfully as a way to self-medicate. This approach appears to be growing. A September 2003 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry (160:1663-1669), shows that smokers today are now more 3 times likely to be depressed than non-smokers. This is a relatively new phenomenon: back when smoking was widely accepted, there was no significant difference in depression rates between smokers and non-smokers.
Twenty five years ago that all began to change. Fewer people were smoking, but those who did were more like likely to be depressed. Note how that coincides with the beginning of this wave of suicidal, depressed, well-armed and non-smoking killers with Chapman in 1980 and Hinckley in 1981. Could it be that the health movement got to the wrong people? If so, could they call off the dogs and let them smoke again. Could the troubled people just blow off their steam again, please. It may not be good for their lungs but it could save my life. If that didn’t work at least their aura of smoke and puffing would serve as an early warning system. If you could at least smell them coming, the head start alone might be worth all the horses in Marlboro Country.
Alan Brody is the author of Cigarette Seduction, www.cigseduction.com
After the horrific shootings, there is always a swarm of agents with alphabet soup windbreakers that rummage through the wreckage. Leading this group is the BATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is generally there to find casings and match them to the weapons.
It’s hard to imagine how much difference this information will make since we already know who the shooter was and just how legally they got their top of the line weapon technology.
So why aren’t they making good use of their time on the "A" and the "T" - looking for alcohol bottles and discarded cigarette butts? Granted, psychopaths seem to shun alcohol on their highly organized trails of retribution. But what about cigarettes?
Good and bad people - even sober judges - smoke. So how come there never seems to be a trail of smoldering butts? No unfinished Marlboros to mark their High Noon moment? Never a cruel cigarillo to show their contempt for society and its second-hand smoke regulations?
This is not just the Virginia Tech killer, the mad boys of Columbine seemed to be similarly abstemious. Then there is the shooting at Pearl, Miss., Jacksboro, Tenn. - and even the Amish country schoolhouse where I just can’t think of any one of them puffing on a stick, Bogey-like. John Hinckley shot Reagan with nary a puff, ditto for Chapman with John Lennon.
It seems like bad form to talk cigarettes at a time like this, although Virginia Tech’s shooter Cho, did mention Hitler, and Hitler as we know, was a non-smoker. (A vegetarian too, but that is another issue).
Is this to suggest that smoking a pack or two a day might have helped? Maybe - studies like the St. Louis survey and a recent American Journal of Psychiatry paper show that smoking and depression are profoundly linked.
The Secret Service psychologist, Dr. Robert Fein, in his study of stalkers and assassins, called the "Exceptional Case Study,” agrees. He adds there is another connected and recurring issue in the profiles of these diverse killers – with the possible exception of Hitler: that they were all at first suicidal. Once they had accepted their own demise, everything else in their terrible quests seemed to fit in rather nicely.
Now cigarettes, that much maligned flourish of youth, have the reputation, at least as far as former secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph A. Califano, Jr. is concerned, as being little more than a form of slow-motion suicide. Normally, you’d agree - who wants to be suicidal? But now we know what suicidal and depressed people can do once you free them of their bad habits, smoking may not be such a terrible thing after all.
Most reports, including those on the ASH.org website will tell you that 88% or so, of smokers have started by age 18. Except for these fellows, of course. (And it usually is fellows.) Obviously, smoking serves as a much needed form of initiation and these outcasts seem to have missed the boat.
Maybe we should invite them back. There’s something to be said for the idea of troubled people taking their suicide in slow, twenty minute increments rather than letting go in a hail of gunfire. Second-hand smoke may be a small price to pay. Besides, these shooters tend have been prescribed antidepressents but then stop taking their meds. That never happens with smokers – once they’re hooked they keep taking their smokes like clockwork.
So maybe we need to rethink the value of smoking. Of course, this would take some revisionist compromising. But dusting off the old “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Glock” campaign is worth another look. And Lucky Strikes could be a good thing in a world of calculating psychopaths. Kool could have done just that - cooled a killer down. Camel - that could have meant nothing more than a trip to the zoo.
Realistically though, our current cigarette brands aren’t quite suicidal enough. We may have to develop a more compelling, more clinically informed family of brands that communicate the idea: “Why shoot me when you could be smoking one of these bad boys?”
This is not necessarily a call for the resurrection of the tobacco companies. After all, Philip Morris recently left New York in a puff as mounting taxes and regulation seemed to pull the rug under their Park Ave. welcome. So they moved their headquarters back to Richmond, Virginia which didn’t help the situation anyway. Apparently, easy guns trump easy cigarettes.
What we really need are prescription-strength cigarettes that health professionals can custom-design for troubled souls. We could call them Cig-Rx. They could have clinical names like Pufficide DX, or 2 Paxil-a-Day. Or they could go to the heart of the problem with displacement fantasy brands like Death Rays, Anti-Harmony, Bad Deeds, My Punishment and the freshly mentholated, Unhappy Days. These solutions are cheap, generate taxes and nourish our farmlands.
All of this really happening anyway, we just don’t control it properly. Psychcentral.com reports that doctors Cheong, Herkov & Goodman found in the St. Louis study, that depressed smokers use their cigarettes quite successfully as a way to self-medicate. This approach appears to be growing. A September 2003 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry (160:1663-1669), shows that smokers today are now more 3 times likely to be depressed than non-smokers. This is a relatively new phenomenon: back when smoking was widely accepted, there was no significant difference in depression rates between smokers and non-smokers.
Twenty five years ago that all began to change. Fewer people were smoking, but those who did were more like likely to be depressed. Note how that coincides with the beginning of this wave of suicidal, depressed, well-armed and non-smoking killers with Chapman in 1980 and Hinckley in 1981. Could it be that the health movement got to the wrong people? If so, could they call off the dogs and let them smoke again. Could the troubled people just blow off their steam again, please. It may not be good for their lungs but it could save my life. If that didn’t work at least their aura of smoke and puffing would serve as an early warning system. If you could at least smell them coming, the head start alone might be worth all the horses in Marlboro Country.
Alan Brody is the author of Cigarette Seduction, www.cigseduction.com
Sunday, March 11, 2007
How the Brain, Not Addiction Controls Your Smoking
The Mysterious Insula: The Tobacco Industry Always Knew There Was more to
Smoking
When I wrote my book, Cigarette Seduction, on how leading tobacco companies had developed their brands, most publishers and other assorted experts responded along the lines of: "Cigarettes aren't that meaningful" and
"tobacco guys aren't that smart.
But the recent news about the insula, a mysterious part of the brain that controls the smoking practice and other mind-body relationships should warrant a second look. When the insula is disabled, as in the case of a brain damaged smoker, people are reported to lose their desire for smoking as well as sex and some other drives.
Smoking
When I wrote my book, Cigarette Seduction, on how leading tobacco companies had developed their brands, most publishers and other assorted experts responded along the lines of: "Cigarettes aren't that meaningful" and
"tobacco guys aren't that smart.
But the recent news about the insula, a mysterious part of the brain that controls the smoking practice and other mind-body relationships should warrant a second look. When the insula is disabled, as in the case of a brain damaged smoker, people are reported to lose their desire for smoking as well as sex and some other drives.
Apparently, the tobacco guys knew more than we realized: that smoking runs deep and the brands have a kind of mythological value, something akin to the religious possession you find in trance practices common in ancient religions. In fact, the smart players in the tobacco industry have long been influenced by deeply psychological researchers. When A.A. Brill translated Freud¹s works into English and become his disciple in the 1910¹s, it didn't take long for Lucky Strike to hire him in the 1920's. (It took a little arm twisting from their PR guy, E.L. Bernays, coincidentally Freud¹s nephew, but when he analyzed cigarettes as being perceived by emancipated women as a torch of freedom, they paid attention. Still do.)
When Dr. Alton Ochsner first noted a correlation between smoking and cancer in the 1940's, another headshrinker, Ernest Dichter, a psychoanalytically-trained psychologist appeared. He told tobacco execs that smoking was a psychological and not a health product. So stop saying things like, "not a cough in a carload" or "more doctors smoke Camel" and soon went about doing depth research into their brands, largely focusing on the mindset of the teen starter.
When Malrboro was launched, the company boasted of spending $200,000 in psychological research. They used Louis Cheskin to run near-subliminal testing of the packaging concepts. Cheskin, whose shape and color consultancy survives him today, was so proud of the work he did, he wrote a book called "How to Predict What People Will Buy." The back cover features him and the later chairman of Philip Morris, George Weissman, smoking a couple of cigarettes.
The color of the filters, typically "cork"-colored for men and plain white for women, their length and even the firmness or softness of their packaging tells a story about the smoker. Some cultures favor a fighting archetype, so the in the US 70% of white males initiate with Marlboro and have been for around 40 years (Cheskin¹s research identified a medal-like image as being key to its success). Other cultures like Japan and China go with Peace and Prosperity brands often focusing on some type of implied Ch'i quotient. In the UK class and yearning for the lost empire are themes and so on.
Most important though, are two things: starting as teen is not just foolishness, it is actually a modern form of tribal initiation and has a profound effect on their adult lives. Sadly, there are few safe alternatives and quitting often requires an understanding of the process.
The other point, which has non-smokers endlessly clucking, is why do otherwise rational people, who know so much about the mortal dangers, keep on smoking. Especially when nicotine leaves the body in about 3 days and there is any number of pills, patches and support groups to help them along.
The answer, and the mysterious insula seems to support this, is that to them, the magic of smoking seems more powerful than its potential to do physical harm.
Smoking and the Da Vinci Code
CIGARETTES AND RELIGION: Some Interesting Parallels Between Da Vinci Code, the Adoption of Christianity and Smoking
What does Inner Quitting/Cigarette Seduction have in common with the Religious blockbuster, the Da Vinci Code? At the coreŠŠa lot more than you'd think.
Both books are about decoding an old mystery. The Da Vinci Code¹s intention is to help understand the real story of Christianity so that you might think you are in control of your belief system. Ours is to help you understand the real story of smoking so that you can take control of your habit and hopefully quit.
At a deeper level it gets more interesting. While both books use an amalgam of fact and deduction to get to the mysteries of belief, the Da Vinci Code is mostly nonsense. Yet, over 17 million people have been willing to ignore historical scholarship because it reflects a message they WANT to believe.
Likewise, we will show there is a similarity to the adoption of religion and smoking with its selection of brands. When people want to believe something, because of personal benefit, the truth is usually ignored.
In Da Vinci Code, the claims made about Jesus¹ life that are simply not supported by any historical fact Š..scholars, like the eminent Professor Bart Ehrman will tell you there are only 4 actual references to Jesus Christ in his lifetime. All are matter-of-fact citations that a certain religious man existed who had some kind of following and absolutely none of them come close to supporting the key assertions of the Da Vinci Code.
The truth about tobacco is just as distorted. People have known about their addictiveness since they were discovered in the 16th Century. We have suspected they dangerous and known about cancer for over 50 years (we can even show cancer references that are 140 years old). But generations of smokers have ignored this for reasons they find more personally meaningful.
In some ways it relates to the adoption of religion and of early Christianity in particular, and its similarity to the adoption of cigarette brands in the way they fulfilled the latent and overt needs of their prospects.
With Da Vinci Code, the issue is simply that due to sexual and other scandals people have developed a mistrust of the Catholic Church. In a world where women have experienced more power and freedom it is inevitable they want to see not only reflected in religion, but that it is part of its origins. Da Vinci Code addresses this by arguing that Christianity was really a feminine religion which was suppressed by Nicean Conference in the 4th Century. But this just isn¹t true, just as his claims about Jesus not being a single rabbi (there is no evidence that he was consecrated while the Essenes were an example of a community of unmarried rabbis at the time). He
also ascribes to Gnosticism, and for that matter paganism, a feminine meaning which just wasn't there....However, most book buyers are women and so the story fills a need.
But what about cigarettes and Christianity?
Let's keep in mind that people smoke in full knowledge of their dangers. It happens to be part of the attraction. We have researcher's reports on this since the 1950s and there are plenty of anecdotal references to make this issue clear. Naturally, you don't hear of these when the issue shows up in courts but that is because neither side wants to dwell on the point not the tobacco companies for exploiting self-destruction nor smokers from seeking it out. It is the truth we conveniently overlook.
In Christianity, the truth we conveniently overlook is that the early Church was founded by Paul who never met Jesus and avoided meeting the surviving apostles. That means he never actually knew what Jesus had said since the gospels had not yet been written. Nevertheless, he is responsible for some of the first books of the New Testament, Act and Epistles which precede the gospels. This is an important point because the gospels define the teaching of Christianity and the most influential gospel, John's was written approximately 70's after Christ's demise and long after Paul had established the early religion.
So what was Paul conveying that was arguably more powerful than Christ's actual teachings since it preceded their adoptionŠ.and why would it relate to smoking?
It was the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul the zealot had a vision on the road to Damascus that told him that the world was coming to end and that salvation would come by the act of accepting the death and resurrection story of Christ and submitting to the power of God. Although he was well versed in the old Bible, he believed that knowledge and rules wouldn't help...only the submission to this greater being. In other words, the acceptance of sacrifice as a means to redemption is what started the religion of Christianity. The actual teaching came much later with the
writing down of the gospels and the other books of the New Testament canon. And by the way, the world hasn't come to an end yet...but you never know!
Cigarettes too, are an act of sacrifice and submission. If people have been smoking for all these years in full or even partial knowledge that they are damaging and addictive, what is the benefit? The answer, of course, is in the brands. Even the absence of brands or cheapie pseudo-brands can be understood as derivatives of the initiating brands (few people start with non-brands).
The key difference between religion and smoking is that, cigarettes submit you through addiction to a contemporary image drawn from the culture of the marketplace. In religion, you are submitting yourself to the ultimate force, God. But in many respects these are only differences in degree.
What Inner Quitting/Cigarette Seduction, Da Vinci Code and Religion itself have in common is that we accept the principle of sacrifice for gain. Da Vinci Code may ask us to suspend rational discourse in return for a more agreeable view of the Christianity. Cigarettes may represent easy sacrifice for easy gain and the gain may be far more ephemeral than eternal life, but the principle is the same. We don't mean to pick on Christianity, smokers belong to all religions and in all cases there is a parallel between their brands and their nation's blend of religion and culture. So if you are a smoker looking to quit, or just interested in the phenomenon, take the
journey with us as we peel back the story and introduce you to the inner
story and the way to quit...for good.
What does Inner Quitting/Cigarette Seduction have in common with the Religious blockbuster, the Da Vinci Code? At the coreŠŠa lot more than you'd think.
Both books are about decoding an old mystery. The Da Vinci Code¹s intention is to help understand the real story of Christianity so that you might think you are in control of your belief system. Ours is to help you understand the real story of smoking so that you can take control of your habit and hopefully quit.
At a deeper level it gets more interesting. While both books use an amalgam of fact and deduction to get to the mysteries of belief, the Da Vinci Code is mostly nonsense. Yet, over 17 million people have been willing to ignore historical scholarship because it reflects a message they WANT to believe.
Likewise, we will show there is a similarity to the adoption of religion and smoking with its selection of brands. When people want to believe something, because of personal benefit, the truth is usually ignored.
In Da Vinci Code, the claims made about Jesus¹ life that are simply not supported by any historical fact Š..scholars, like the eminent Professor Bart Ehrman will tell you there are only 4 actual references to Jesus Christ in his lifetime. All are matter-of-fact citations that a certain religious man existed who had some kind of following and absolutely none of them come close to supporting the key assertions of the Da Vinci Code.
The truth about tobacco is just as distorted. People have known about their addictiveness since they were discovered in the 16th Century. We have suspected they dangerous and known about cancer for over 50 years (we can even show cancer references that are 140 years old). But generations of smokers have ignored this for reasons they find more personally meaningful.
In some ways it relates to the adoption of religion and of early Christianity in particular, and its similarity to the adoption of cigarette brands in the way they fulfilled the latent and overt needs of their prospects.
With Da Vinci Code, the issue is simply that due to sexual and other scandals people have developed a mistrust of the Catholic Church. In a world where women have experienced more power and freedom it is inevitable they want to see not only reflected in religion, but that it is part of its origins. Da Vinci Code addresses this by arguing that Christianity was really a feminine religion which was suppressed by Nicean Conference in the 4th Century. But this just isn¹t true, just as his claims about Jesus not being a single rabbi (there is no evidence that he was consecrated while the Essenes were an example of a community of unmarried rabbis at the time). He
also ascribes to Gnosticism, and for that matter paganism, a feminine meaning which just wasn't there....However, most book buyers are women and so the story fills a need.
But what about cigarettes and Christianity?
Let's keep in mind that people smoke in full knowledge of their dangers. It happens to be part of the attraction. We have researcher's reports on this since the 1950s and there are plenty of anecdotal references to make this issue clear. Naturally, you don't hear of these when the issue shows up in courts but that is because neither side wants to dwell on the point not the tobacco companies for exploiting self-destruction nor smokers from seeking it out. It is the truth we conveniently overlook.
In Christianity, the truth we conveniently overlook is that the early Church was founded by Paul who never met Jesus and avoided meeting the surviving apostles. That means he never actually knew what Jesus had said since the gospels had not yet been written. Nevertheless, he is responsible for some of the first books of the New Testament, Act and Epistles which precede the gospels. This is an important point because the gospels define the teaching of Christianity and the most influential gospel, John's was written approximately 70's after Christ's demise and long after Paul had established the early religion.
So what was Paul conveying that was arguably more powerful than Christ's actual teachings since it preceded their adoptionŠ.and why would it relate to smoking?
It was the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul the zealot had a vision on the road to Damascus that told him that the world was coming to end and that salvation would come by the act of accepting the death and resurrection story of Christ and submitting to the power of God. Although he was well versed in the old Bible, he believed that knowledge and rules wouldn't help...only the submission to this greater being. In other words, the acceptance of sacrifice as a means to redemption is what started the religion of Christianity. The actual teaching came much later with the
writing down of the gospels and the other books of the New Testament canon. And by the way, the world hasn't come to an end yet...but you never know!
Cigarettes too, are an act of sacrifice and submission. If people have been smoking for all these years in full or even partial knowledge that they are damaging and addictive, what is the benefit? The answer, of course, is in the brands. Even the absence of brands or cheapie pseudo-brands can be understood as derivatives of the initiating brands (few people start with non-brands).
The key difference between religion and smoking is that, cigarettes submit you through addiction to a contemporary image drawn from the culture of the marketplace. In religion, you are submitting yourself to the ultimate force, God. But in many respects these are only differences in degree.
What Inner Quitting/Cigarette Seduction, Da Vinci Code and Religion itself have in common is that we accept the principle of sacrifice for gain. Da Vinci Code may ask us to suspend rational discourse in return for a more agreeable view of the Christianity. Cigarettes may represent easy sacrifice for easy gain and the gain may be far more ephemeral than eternal life, but the principle is the same. We don't mean to pick on Christianity, smokers belong to all religions and in all cases there is a parallel between their brands and their nation's blend of religion and culture. So if you are a smoker looking to quit, or just interested in the phenomenon, take the
journey with us as we peel back the story and introduce you to the inner
story and the way to quit...for good.
Firing Smokers
Firing Smokers for Health is Just a Smokescreen The Real Issue is Productivity
By Alan Brody
Now that Scott's Miracle-Go Co. has become the second highly visible company
after Weyco. Inc. to terminate workers who smoke, it might be a good time to
tell the truth about smoking in the workplace.
It just isn't an issue of health; it is an issue of time and disruption.
Committed smokers need to refuel their nicotine receptors about every 20
minutes. That means 3 times an hour they have to leave their desks, hike
down to the back door have a smoke, wave off the odor and head back to the
office.
They could be losing as much as 15 minutes an hour!
Then, there is the whole cat and mouse, deception game. Smokers are fully
aware of their needs and while they know their bosses accept their
occasional smoke break, they don¹t want them to realize just how many they
need. So the game begins: every bathroom break is also a smoke break. No
matter how cold, men never put on coats for the smoke because that would be
a giveaway. Women have learned to love cardigans that can just about keep
them warm outside while staying on at the desk.
And all off them puff a little deeper to help warm their bodies.
So what does this have to do with healthŠŠat least from the company¹s point
of view?
Not that much.
After all, if smokers get sicker or take more sick days than non-smokers,
then any number of health planners can figure that out and charge smokers a
higher premium, or co-pay. If I remember correctly, insurance companies
figured that out a long time ago. I¹ll bet there are a few retired actuaries
kicking around who¹ll be glad to calculate those rates. (Don¹t forget to
give them a break on the pensions, though. They won¹t be around as long to
enjoy Œem!)
The point is that companies are tying to shore up productivity and close the
door on subtly disruptive behavior and they don¹t have the honesty to say
so. So they roll out the ³eat your peas² argument. ³We¹re only doing what¹s
good for you!² And who can argue with that?
Well, I can.
First off, do-gooders, especially in the form of authorities, are never to
be trusted.
Let¹s look at the mother of all feel good tobacco fights, the great
attorneys-general settlement of the 90¹s with the tobacco companies that
generates about $25 billion a year in state taxes. At best, 5% has gone
towards anything remotely concerned with cigarette health issues. The rest
has gone into notorious pork-barrel projects and balancing fiscally
imprudent State¹s budgets.
The smokers, mostly blue collar and young, have footed the bill, of course.
And very little of the smoking phenomenon has entered the realm of honest
conversation.
So let¹s take a moment to consider the reality.
Firstly, no company with an aggressive sales team would do what Scott¹s is
doing because they lose a good percentage of their best performers. But, if
they were honest about it they would understand what smoking is and how to
deal with it. For the most part it is a kind of psychic medication and when
you take it away you need to consider what will replace it. In some cases,
simply encouraging workers to use a nicotine substitute during work hours is
a reasonable choice.
In other cases, you will find that smoking is self medication for long term
depression (one of the reasons that anti-depressants are among the most
effective smoke cessation tools.)
There is a reason that some of the world¹s biggest bastards were non-smokers
(we¹ll take Hitler and Dylan Kleibold, the Columbine killer, as our examples
here, with Hitler¹s veganism being an added bonus). They just weren¹t
medicating themselves. Likewise, some of our most productive leaders were
chain-smokers: people like Roosevelt, Chairman Mao, Golda Meier and
Coca-Cola¹s Goizuetta. Even Humphrey Bogart and Edwin Murrow are famous
examples.
Smoking was always quasi-mystical practice and when the big tobacco
companies discovered that, beginning say, in 1922 when Freud¹s people were
first called in, they and big government spent about 75 years feeding and
supporting that habit. They have to do a lot more than sit by idly while a
couple of two-bit corporate do-gooders try to blow it away with a corporate
memo.
Besides, once the argument is understood it is only a matter of when the
next class of undesirables will be on their way out: how long before
overeaters, loud-talkers, bad body odors, nose pickers and other miscreants
will be off the pay-roll and looking at eBay as a way to make a living?
Companies have a right to expect full participation from their workers. But
workers have a right to be themselves and there ought to be a law that says,
as long as they perform at work like everyone else you can¹t ask about their
smoking, their drinking or their sex lives.
That means smokers have to figure out how to behave like everyone else for 8
hours a days and bosses can stop acting like the saints they are not.
Or as the sign should say: Thank you for not smoking...or preaching.
By Alan Brody
Now that Scott's Miracle-Go Co. has become the second highly visible company
after Weyco. Inc. to terminate workers who smoke, it might be a good time to
tell the truth about smoking in the workplace.
It just isn't an issue of health; it is an issue of time and disruption.
Committed smokers need to refuel their nicotine receptors about every 20
minutes. That means 3 times an hour they have to leave their desks, hike
down to the back door have a smoke, wave off the odor and head back to the
office.
They could be losing as much as 15 minutes an hour!
Then, there is the whole cat and mouse, deception game. Smokers are fully
aware of their needs and while they know their bosses accept their
occasional smoke break, they don¹t want them to realize just how many they
need. So the game begins: every bathroom break is also a smoke break. No
matter how cold, men never put on coats for the smoke because that would be
a giveaway. Women have learned to love cardigans that can just about keep
them warm outside while staying on at the desk.
And all off them puff a little deeper to help warm their bodies.
So what does this have to do with healthŠŠat least from the company¹s point
of view?
Not that much.
After all, if smokers get sicker or take more sick days than non-smokers,
then any number of health planners can figure that out and charge smokers a
higher premium, or co-pay. If I remember correctly, insurance companies
figured that out a long time ago. I¹ll bet there are a few retired actuaries
kicking around who¹ll be glad to calculate those rates. (Don¹t forget to
give them a break on the pensions, though. They won¹t be around as long to
enjoy Œem!)
The point is that companies are tying to shore up productivity and close the
door on subtly disruptive behavior and they don¹t have the honesty to say
so. So they roll out the ³eat your peas² argument. ³We¹re only doing what¹s
good for you!² And who can argue with that?
Well, I can.
First off, do-gooders, especially in the form of authorities, are never to
be trusted.
Let¹s look at the mother of all feel good tobacco fights, the great
attorneys-general settlement of the 90¹s with the tobacco companies that
generates about $25 billion a year in state taxes. At best, 5% has gone
towards anything remotely concerned with cigarette health issues. The rest
has gone into notorious pork-barrel projects and balancing fiscally
imprudent State¹s budgets.
The smokers, mostly blue collar and young, have footed the bill, of course.
And very little of the smoking phenomenon has entered the realm of honest
conversation.
So let¹s take a moment to consider the reality.
Firstly, no company with an aggressive sales team would do what Scott¹s is
doing because they lose a good percentage of their best performers. But, if
they were honest about it they would understand what smoking is and how to
deal with it. For the most part it is a kind of psychic medication and when
you take it away you need to consider what will replace it. In some cases,
simply encouraging workers to use a nicotine substitute during work hours is
a reasonable choice.
In other cases, you will find that smoking is self medication for long term
depression (one of the reasons that anti-depressants are among the most
effective smoke cessation tools.)
There is a reason that some of the world¹s biggest bastards were non-smokers
(we¹ll take Hitler and Dylan Kleibold, the Columbine killer, as our examples
here, with Hitler¹s veganism being an added bonus). They just weren¹t
medicating themselves. Likewise, some of our most productive leaders were
chain-smokers: people like Roosevelt, Chairman Mao, Golda Meier and
Coca-Cola¹s Goizuetta. Even Humphrey Bogart and Edwin Murrow are famous
examples.
Smoking was always quasi-mystical practice and when the big tobacco
companies discovered that, beginning say, in 1922 when Freud¹s people were
first called in, they and big government spent about 75 years feeding and
supporting that habit. They have to do a lot more than sit by idly while a
couple of two-bit corporate do-gooders try to blow it away with a corporate
memo.
Besides, once the argument is understood it is only a matter of when the
next class of undesirables will be on their way out: how long before
overeaters, loud-talkers, bad body odors, nose pickers and other miscreants
will be off the pay-roll and looking at eBay as a way to make a living?
Companies have a right to expect full participation from their workers. But
workers have a right to be themselves and there ought to be a law that says,
as long as they perform at work like everyone else you can¹t ask about their
smoking, their drinking or their sex lives.
That means smokers have to figure out how to behave like everyone else for 8
hours a days and bosses can stop acting like the saints they are not.
Or as the sign should say: Thank you for not smoking...or preaching.
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