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I plead guilty to enjoying smoking – and hating the busybodies who turn the proscription of small things into a kind of tyranny
Jump to full article: The Guardian (uk), 2009-09-29
Author: David Hockney | Comment is free
Intro: Deborah Arnott is a professional anti-smoker. She makes her living from it. She thinks she can "save lives". Since we all get a lifetime and she is not offering immortality, what she means is you might have a longer life.
Given the choice of 50 years as a free person or 70 years as a slave, she would choose slavery. I wouldn't. . . .
There are a lot of people who don't like smoke or smoking but there are a lot of people who do. Tobacco is a great calmer, it relieves stress, it can put you in a contemplativ . . .
Putting cigarettes "under the counter" is now quite funny. That's where a lot of people buy them already, so this is just going to get bigger. It will mean non-smokers will pay more tax, as revenue still has come to the government. From where? This is never debated, because the press has the same agenda as the government. We'd all be healthier without tobacco. I, for one, just don't believe it. Like alcohol, it won't go away. People will make their own and to stop that will need a bigger tyranny than we have now. Deborah Arnott won't mind so long as it's "smoke free".
A far more lawless society will emerge, and the statistics might please her. Others will know they are not true.
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