You will have noticed that I have recently posted a few items on smoking cigarettes. You will have also noticed that I am totally against Rishi Sunak’s incremental ban on smoking for young people, therewith making it impossible for people under a certain age ever to buy cigarettes in this country. Of course I am against encouraging young people to start smoking, but I view this ban as absurd, anti-democratic, dictatorial, intrusive, illiberal, and fundamentally anti-Conservative.
Conservatives are supposed to believe in small government. That means to say that a good Conservative government is supposed not to interfere in people’s private lives or at least as little as possible. Conservative governments are certainly not supposed to tell people what they should eat, drink, or whether they can smoke a perfectly legal product, or not.
This stupid, intrusive law, if passed, is even more annoying and absurd, because we are living in a time in which many governments around the world are decriminalizing soft drugs such as cannabis, and many governments are encouraging young people to vape, the encouragement of which I absolutely disagree with. Why? Because we don’t yet know what the long-term health consequences of vaping and e-cigarettes are.
Many governments and authorities try and say that vaping is less injurious to health than the smoking of conventional cigarettes; but is it really? Only time will tell. What we do know, however, is that vaping, with the plethora of flavours on offer, appeal to young people in a way which conventional cigarettes never did or could.
Cigarette-smoking is an acquired habit. You cannot smoke one cigarette, your first, and love it. Usually, one’s first cigarette tastes foul! Not so, it seems, vaping. An apricot-flavoured vape, for example, has instant appeal to many a young person. The fact that these devices often resemble hi-tech devices is an added attraction to our young people who want to look ‘cool’. This is surely why there are so many young people today hooked on vaping. Vaping today is ‘cool’ in a way conventional cigarettes no longer are. (At least for the time being.)
I have never vaped; and nor have I any intention of ever doing so. Nor have I ever partaken of any drugs. Not even the softest of them. I say that with pride, because there was plenty of opportunity even way back when I was a student. I stuck to cigarettes and alcohol. But in moderation.
Even though I defend people’s right to smoke and deplore this ongoing, unrelenting war on tobacco and cigarettes, I am pleased to be able to report that today, October 10th, marks one and a half years since I smoked my last cigarette. My last cigarette was on April 10th, 2022.
As it happens, I haven't had a drink of alcohol since early June this year, either; so, that is four months without a drink too! My liver is surely happier. Living without alcohol has also been easy.
Actually, I didn’t decide to stop drinking alcohol. It happened by accident. It is not necessarily my intention never to drink again. With Christmas coming, I probably will. But I am sure that being without alcohol for several months has done my health good, especially my liver. Interestingly, I haven’t missed alcoholic drinks at all. It’s surprising what one can do without and what one can get used to.
© Mark Alexander
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