Mind If We Smoke?

Since arriving in Turkey, Emily and I have both been watching intently to find our first person who doesn’t smoke. We have two days left in Turkey and so far, we haven’t found an honest and true non-smoker.

Sure, there are some who save their cigarettes for dessert. You can’t finish a meal in this country and not light up. And then you need a cigarette to celebrate the end of the dessert cigarette. And then there were some of the Russians at our resort who were practically handing their teenagers a pack and showing them how.

Two nights ago we were at a restaurant where we looked and literally couldn’t find a table without each person at the table smoking at one point or another. Thank goodness it was an outdoor courtyard because being inside doesn’t stop anyone.

When we were with our Russian friends back in Alanya, we discussed cigarette smoking with them. Both Gene and Christina smoke, although they moderate themselves. He asked us why one wouldn’t smoke? I replied that it causes cancer. He told me that it hasn’t been proven.

Our discussion led to the fact that it isn’t considered common knowledge – or more importantly belief – in Russia that smoking causes cancer. One of the largest, most populated nations on earth not only doesn’t educate against smoking, it doesn’t validate clinical research linking smoking to cancer. Wow.

Emily brought up that it also causes emphysema. Yadda yadda yadda…they’ve never seen anyone with an oxygen tank and tubes in their nose. We figure the Russian answer to emphysema is not to treat it at all – because there’s no way it doesn’t exist, unless it turns out vodka counteracts lung damage. In which case, many people will toast to that.

The sad part is that none of this really surprises me. Smoking is highly prevalent in every Asian country I lived in or visited except Singapore whose government very actively discourages it. Even in beautiful Bali, the natives often smoke kretek, clove laden tobacco cigarettes. The smell makes it far more tolerable to a non-smoker and they seem more mild than the stuff burning in the air here in Turkey. But still, they’re cigarettes.

And of course there’s Europe. Two and a half years ago when I was in France, people still smoked up a storm – with an air of defiance that no one could pressure them into changing their lifestyle. The very definition of being French. I kinda’ love it…. but I didn’t love breathing it.

Despite all the years abroad and places I’ve gone – I always forget once I’ve been home for long enough that the rest of the world is hooked on cigarettes. If the United States has done anything to irreparably harm the world, it’s been the promotion, sales and widespread distribution of tobacco. While we work on cleaning up our own act, we shamelessly and very effectively promulgate an international sales effort which is only picking up steam.

How different is our modern tobacco business from Britain’s use of opium sales in colonial Asia? Tobacco is as addictive and perhaps more insidious because of its widespread social acceptability. The American tobacco industry is responsible for the addiction, illness and deaths of so many around the world.

But for us as travelers, what’s been just as amazing is the lack of awareness or shame smokers here have. In America, smokers are at least aware that non-smokers may not appreciate their smoke. “Do you mind if I smoke?” is not a sentence you’ll hear in Turkey – among any nationality, including the many European travelers.

American smokers also have an awareness of their choice. They know they shouldn’t smoke for health reasons. There’s a lot of social pressure to quit. Smokers at least tell their children not to follow their example – do as I say, not as I do. When you see the rest of the world, you almost appreciate the smoking parent’s hypocrisy – because at least there’s an awareness.

So it occurred to me last week – sitting on a beautiful Mediterranean beach in Alanya watching teenagers light up in front of their parents who were also smoking – that if there was one ailment in the world I would want to change, it would be smoking. It harms more people than nuclear weaponry or terrorism, people are as dependent on it as oil, and the poor spend a disproportionate amount of money on it.

Sometimes the biggest problems in the world are the ones we accept and even embrace. And often they are as small and concealed as a cigarette in a shirt pocket.

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