(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

With so much to worry about - the pandemic, fires, global warming - the last couple years, at least we don’t have to worry about cigarette smoking. Oops, wrote to soon.

Believe it or not, after 40 years of steady decline in smoking, more young people than ever started smoking the past two years. Doesn’t matter where they live…the U.S., Canada, France, the U.K….young folks are lighting up even though they know it’s a bad idea. It’s the rage on social media…crowds are gathering again outside the doors of bars and clubs to smoke…it is, they say, “cool and sophisticated.”

Of course, it is neither. But it seems they simply don’t care. For better or worse - and it hedges closer to worse - young people think things are so bad in their worlds, it can’t get much worse. Here’s where age and experience teach a different lesson. It can, and most assuredly will get worse.

Now smokers have choices - old fashioned cigarettes and/or vaping. More than twice as many young people vape, according to a recent Gallup Poll. Like time on social media…vaping can become an ever-present pastime…because you can “camouflage” your habit rather than obviously smoking a cigarette. Two-thirds of those between ages 18 and 29 who smoke…use both.

Some avoid vaping because the full measure of side effects are unknown…“better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?” My guess, too, is that it’s harder to look “cool” or “sophisticated” with a USB plug hanging out of your mouth.

There are those who believe that vaping is a proven tool to help cigarette smokers quit…and others who believe vaping is yet another of the tobacco industry’s insidious plots to make nicotine addiction a continuing reality. Could be both, I suppose.

Earlier when I noted more young people are smoking…it could be that every age group has started smoking again. Tobacco sales are definitely up…and like a tide that raises all boats…it’s hard to say with precision exactly who is smoking…or even smoking more. Anecdotally, notice the next time you pass a club or people gathering anywhere outside…there seems to be more folks puffing away.

People just might be that pissed off. A couple of years of things not going the way we want can build easily into rebellion. “Yeah, I’m smoking…you gonna tell me I can’t?” It could be a fight looking for a place to happen.

I understand it, really. When I was 22 years old in the U.S. Air Force…I started smoking. It might kill me, you say?…well, yeah, so might going to Vietnam. But I’m hoping - like me - young folks will drop the tobacco when things get better…and things will get better. I crushed the remaining cigarettes in a Marlboro crush-proof box when I hopped an Air Force flight to Germany on April 29, 1972. No one - for the most part - was shooting at Americans in Germany.

I remember cooly flipping a cigarette in my mouth and lighting it back then…blowing smoke rings. Trying to tell a young person cigarettes are not cool is a battle you won’t often win. The tobacco industry started way back in the 1930s putting cigarettes in the hands and mouths of every Hollywood actor…they were good at their job.

They were so good that even in my small town, pretty 18-year-old girls carrying trays with straps around the necks and wearing short skirts and those funny little hats handed out three-cigarette mini-packs to any and all on Saturdays. They were careful to never be on the same block as the theatre…you know, just in case someone figured out their plan.

You could almost fill BC Place with the number of Canadians who die each year from tobacco…it kills more than 8 million people worldwide…every year. These statistics don’t dissuade smokers - young or old - as you might think or hope.

But maybe the realities - and incongruities - will hit the current youth crowd drawn to smoking. After all, swooshing down the slopes in Winter and riding bike trails in Summer are antithetical with smoking. Besides, the price of looking cool isn’t cheap…typically $120 or more per carton of cigarettes.

Perhaps this smoking trend will reverse itself in the months ahead. Oh, in case you haven’t guessed, drinking alcohol is up, as well - about 14 percent - for all of us. The last couple years have been rough…let’s hope 2022 brings better times. Now that really would be cool.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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