The boomerang effect of banning tobacco products
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 12 2011 -
Various civil organizations have been banning the sale and use of tobacco products. Chewing or smoking tobacco is a confirmed health hazard and it has been established that use of tobacco is related to lung and oral cancer.
Given the facts, the work of the Good Samaritans to ban the sale and use of tobacco products is most praiseworthy. However, the effects of this worthy cause have led to bewildering results.
Sales and use have not stopped. Sale of spurious items have increased, the items have now to be brought into Manipur in a multi stage manner and this has sky-rocketed the prices. Finally those who were previously engaged in a thriving business are now dealing with a booming business Sans Frontières.
The Good Samaritans might chew off their nails, tear out their hair and beards, or whatever, and like Moses on the mountain peak in Sinai, thunder upon the sinners to change and shape up or else.
But we can't, we are after all human beings and our lack of conviction and inability to accept the discomfiting nature of facts, along with cunning and technology that we have acquired separates us from other good primates. We just want to be plain bad.
And this is no self castigation to make a point that we are not good. We know what type of lives we should live to post permanent road signs for our children to follow, and yet, with all the genuine love and care we have for our beloved children our curiosity makes us continuously taste the forbidden fruit.
Having armed ourselves with such undesirable and yet undeniable facts let us ask ourselves a few questions. Has an embargo, a ban or a prohibition ever succeeded in human history ?
The answer is NO.
In modern times, the most serious effort made on these lines was the prohibition imposed on the American population by its legitimately elected government.
The imposition was supported to the hilt by the women and the church. It was imposed by amending the US constitution.
The fall out ? The fall out was that, average people like us got the benefit of knowing at least two new phrases in English, 'bootlegging' and 'moonlighting'. The prohibition took place in the earlier part of the 20th century.
For those governing the USA, they received a corrupt and criminalised police force and a baby faced monster, the king of illicit distilling, called Al Capone. Many other millionaires too were created in dubious manners, one of whose sons, it is said, in hush hush tones, went on to become the president of the USA.
We obviously cannot achieve what the United States as a country could not. But, the cause is based on good intent and it needs support.
To start with, the movement should base its works on awareness campaigns and trust building measures. This will necessitate removal of professional prohibitionists, they are sullen, mean minded and act at the edge of the law's limits.
There will be the need of professionals to take in the 'sinners' into their fold. Burning of tobacco based products is a method likely to yield the least results. The present steps are like climbing a mountain with your back laid across the mountain face.
After all we don't want to land up in a situation, as in the Tintin books, where Professor Cuthbert Calculus perfected a pill to cure the insatiable desire of whisky of his friend Captain Haddock.
Captain Haddock did not take this kindly and suspected that the Professor was 'trying to cure the pleasures of other people'.
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