Many years ago, when Globe was the cinema of note, I took a friend from Canada to see a Golden Harvest kung-fu flick. Oh how I miss the running commentary of house! The way Trinis used to interact with the characters on screen, as if it were a play in progress: "Yuh intah-fear wit de man family and now look what happen!" "Ooooh goooode! Yatow! He fly straight across de room and kick de man in he chess!" My friend from Canada was tickled pink by the advisory which appeared on the screen before the much anticipated previews began: "Please be advised that there are undercover officers in the building. Please do not smoke marijuana in this cinema." My friend turned to me and tried to stifle stomach-cramp-inducing laughter long enough to get the question out, "They have to tell people that?" Sigh... yes, that was the case. It was marijuana that you could not smoke at the movies, but cigarettes were fine.
As I reflect on the brouhaha as the Government goes through the labour pains of pushing through this tobacco legislation, it is interesting to take a look at our culture of smoking and how it has changed even without the punitive measures threatened in proposed laws. When I first started my career at TTT in the early 1990s, I walked into a newsroom that was like the Grand Central pool hall in Curepe. Everybody smoked! All that was missing was a urinal next to the printer and a sign painted above which read: "Gents please aim straight!" My boss had an ashtray that looked like a neglected barbecue pit because he smoked like Dean Martin. The haze in the building was enough to choke a smoke detector to death. One of the senior news reporters at the time, Catherine Thorne, would complain bitterly about the lack of consideration for those who were fighting for survival in the post- apocalyptic tobacco gloom that pervaded every corner of the news department. It was ridiculous! Even in my interview for that job I could not see the human resource manager because he was blowing so much smoke I felt like I was in an FBI interrogation room.
A woman coming home from a long day at TTT would probably have to explain to her husband why she smells like she just tumbled out of a five-hour bender at The College pub in St James. (I say woman because you know men don't do no "splainin!") Back then there was smoking in taxis! Can you imagine that? Let's see, how can we make the experience of percolating in a midday maxi more crowded than a ten-pound turkey with 20 pounds of stuffing extremely uncomfortable? Hey, how about lighting up a cigarette! So now you are travelling home in a convection oven, you're head throbbin' with the latest Supercat cassette rung out on the Pioneer clock radio and the guy in front of you is smoking! That was also the very same era that most office places voluntarily issued bans on smoking. This led to the inevitable gathering of the new pariahs outside on the sidewalk taking the puffs in the hot sun. Within recent times many restaurants have followed suit, dousing smoking in their establishments. Even the Carnival Bar at the Hilton recently implemented a prohibition on the hard-to-kick habit.
Some smokers have argued nonsensically that if you cannot tolerate smoke, you should not be in a bar. Well maybe they would like to have a drink too, n'est pas? It is obvious that some watering holes will be affected by these changes. Smoking and drinking go together like hand and blister so there will be a drop-off of patrons who feel that their full enjoyment of these vices will be compromised by the new legislation. Somehow though I don't see any candlelight vigils on the horizon for these long-suffering businesses. It is a concept whose time is nigh for us. New York state has perhaps some of the most progressive anti-smoking laws in the world and the definition of "public place" is broad–broader than Broadway. The Clean Indoor Air Act defines "bar" as any establishment with seating indoor or out and restrictions apply here. In New York state, "employer" means any person, partnership, association, limited liability company, corporation or non-profit entity which employs one or more people, including the legislative, executive and judicial branches of state government and any political subdivision of the state.
Sound familiar? That is exactly what the Government was trying to do here. This was one measure that some people thought was an infringement of an individual's rights. "I cyar smoke in my own house because the cleaner go ben'!" The Government could easily have left that clause in the legislation because the solution for the committed smoker is quite obvious. Fire your domestic worker and clean your own damn house. These are just two of the expansive definitions contained in the act. There is however one oddity that I noted and perhaps I am not reading it correctly. New York state law defines "smoking" as the burning of a lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe or any other matter or substance which contains tobacco...so ...weed is ok? Anyway the point is, the only conceivable group in society who could have misgivings about the legislation is the tobacco company Witco. The company is in the business of selling a product that is not illegal (at least not yet; cocaine was available legally until 1914 in the US and cigarettes don't make people go crackers) and it is expected that it would do what it must to defend its profit margins.
I anticipate that Trinidadians will, in time, shed the smoking culture that I described earlier and that is a good thing. I support the legislation because...I am a smoker, and any measures that could cause behaviour modifications assisting me to beat this terrible affliction, I am all for it. So to Health Minister Jerry Narace and the Government I would like to say congratulations. I go take a drink for dat.
