The Past, Remembered

Today's Saratoga California Rotary Art show, at a nearby public community college was wonderful. All of the usual arts were represented and my wife and I enjoyed our walk through the displays on a warm sunny Spring day. Until we smelled a really foul cigar smoked by a chubby late-middle aged man in a straw hat. We checked with the art show staff, where others were making the same complaint about the same person, and were told that there were many signs indicating that smoking was prohibited anywhere on the public campus. When we later ran into this smoker again and told him what we had learned he waved at us, indicating that we were the ones who should leave.

As one who formerly smoked, I understood the cigar smoker's addiction (and the rudeness which he used to ward off any threats to his denial of addiction). I also remembered seeing acutely sick patients of all ages in hospital emergency rooms, brought there by the toxic effects of alcohol and tobacco. Tobacco and alcohol are major factors in the cost of United States health care and we will not succeed in "health care reform" until we reign-in the use of these dangerous drugs.

A number of years ago  my wife and I attended a conference on the USSR presented by a noted Harvard professor who told us that the USSR was dependent on its revenue from taxing alcohol (primarily Vodka) for many of its national expenditures, including defense.  He should have gone further to indicate that America and its individual states also have an ambivalent approach to smoking and drinking because the nation and its political subdivisions derive substantial revenues from alcohol and tobacco.

If we want health reform, and individual health improvement, we need to resolve our national ambivalence and convince Americans to stop smoking, stop using "chewing" or  "mouth" tobacco, and stop drinking to excess.  If we divert money from our unsuccessful narcotics interdiction programs to high-power campaigns to deglamorize tobacco , alcohol and other controlled substances, maybe we could really cut health care costs and improve results.

That cigar, today, smelled awful.