Lately I've had deep thoughts about addiction, specifically addiction to cigarettes. At some level, we know it's suicide, but the resulting sickness and death always seem to happen to somebody else, someone so much older, etc. It's just about impossible to imagine that you could be there one day too, hearing the doctor announce your imminent death from a preventable disease, all because you smoke.
Smoking. Such a heavy addiction. I quit 32 years ago and it seems like less. The dreams about smoking lasted for years and, once, I woke up wondering if I really did have a cigarette the day before. In my dreams, I played the game, "How many cigarettes can I smoke - and still say I quit?" In another dream I was smoking, then remembering I had quit, and stubbed out the cigarette at the same time I was lighting another...
My husband quit later in life, at 52. At 53, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Six months later he was gone. I could hardly believe it. His lost years hung before me like a mirage.
Then I thought about why cigarettes are still marketed, knowing the human cost. I realized there is another side to this story - the savings. People on the side of health and productivity and life are in the newspapers counting the costs. But, somewhere in the unpublished darkness there could be people counting the savings: the years of pensions not paid, social services not used, the income from taxes raised and, suddenly, the health care costs begin to look small in comparison.
It begins to look like it is profitable for governments and cigarette manufacturers to market cigarettes. When I see the populations that are smoking heavily, I see populations that the government has no interest in keeping healthy, like the poor, and the marginalized. Cigarettes can be used for genocide. Is this another side of the story? Through addiction, people kill themselves - problem solved. No guns needed.
This post is long enough for now. I may have more on this another time. No promises.