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| SAVING THE UNBORN CHILD |
9/26/2008 |
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There are lots of invectives about the loathsomeness of the habit of smoking but most of them are unprintable but these few inveigh from ages: •Thank you for not smoking. Cigarette smoke is the residue of your pleasure. It contaminates the air, pollutes my hair and clothes, not to mention my lungs. This takes place without my consent.-Sign on Ken’s Magic shop. •Children learn by imitating parents.
Pause. Do you smoke cigarettes? •Tobacco-tumour causing, teeth staining, smelly, puking habit-Dept
of Health-Arizona. •I would rather kiss a mad cow on the muzzle than a smoker on the mouth- Paul
Carvel •A cigarette is a pipe with a fire at one end and a fool at the other-Unknown It is an irony that
since the early man discovered fire and perhaps mistakenly inhaled the smoke therefrom; both the early
man and the civilized man have never looked back on the inhalation of smoke in one form or another.
The situation is such that the number of smokers continues to soar every year despite the world of
facts on the high correlation between smoking and chronic pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases. It is no exaggeration that, smoking, be it, of cigar, cigarettes, stone, etc instead of decreasing has rather
become socialized, politicized, ritualized and commercialized. However, on July 1st 2008, The Netherlands ban on smoking in Café’s, bars and restaurants came into effect. Prior to this time and in the traditional Dutch liberal attitude, piecemeal measures as restriction of smoking in trains, company
offices, public buildings, etc, had been adopted. In some public places, smoking areas were emarcated,
cordoned and designated. It is hoped that nonsmokers crossing the demilitarized zone, where smokers have been quarantined should be provided with plastic masks akin to the China bird flu episode.
Hence, the Dutch by this measure finally joined a growing trend across Europe and the world of
bans of smoking in public places. While it is true that most goods we consume have their side effects,
the hazards arising from smoking dwarf them all. It includes the increased risk of heart disease, cancer,
and other chronic, acute and in most cases terminal diseases. The ban has thus put cigarette in the of
private goods category where it appropriately belongs. The purchase and consumption of such ought
to be totally exclusive, thereby limiting the ‘freeridership and externalities’ that are characteristics
of public goods but inherent in such private goods as cigarettes. Since researches have garnered substantial evidence that passive/second-hand smoke causes the same problems as direct smoking.
Furthermore, it has been established scientifically, that when life-long non-smokers live with partners who smoke in the home, they have 20-30% greater risk of lung cancer than non-smokers who live with nonsmokers. After all, a drop of poison can be as deadly as the full bottle. The consumers and major players in the Hospitality industry have argued that such ban constitutes infringement of their private rights and loss of revenue to the government, but they failed to recognize that smoking costs the society awful lots of money. Smokers take more time off work sick and use up a higher proportion of health care vote. Thus, such individual freedom comes at a heavy cost. Thus, government exists to curtail such “group ignorance”. While the individuals look on the smaller picture of personal satisfaction and commercial profitability, the government looks at the bigger picture of freer and cleaner air, healthier
populace, etc. The tax revenue accruing from cigarette has failed to capture/cover all the externalities
to the society emanating from smoking. There are lots of inter generational and intra-generational
costs arising from smoking cigarette that call for government intervention. That is why the governments
around the world are curtailing the erstwhile “lassiez faire” system to smoking. The history of
tobacco ban is a very long one. For instance, Pope Urban VII’s 13-day reign included the world’s first
known public smoking ban in (1590). The Pope threatened to excommunicate anyone who took tobacco
in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose.
Also Sir Walter Raleigh, the man who imported tobacco into Europe, was hanged, drawn and quartered. Sir Edward Coke described him as “the notoriousest
traitor” that ever came to the bar. King James 1 of England as far back as the 16th century made a
counterblast to tobacco smoking in the following words: “And for the vanities committed in this filthy
custom, is it not great vanity and uncleanness, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanliness, of
modesty, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of tobacco pipes, and puffing of the smoke of tobacco one to another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof, to exhale at…. the dishes, and infect
the air, when very often men that abhor it are at their repast (meal)?.....It makes a kitchen also often-times in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kind of sooth, as
has been found in some of tobacco takers, that after their death were opened (post mortem) ……Have
you not reason then to be ashamed, and forebear this filthy novelty… a custom loathsome to the eye,
hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs….”. If King James who lived from
1566-1625 could say this much about smoking, what becomes of people of our generation that can
use modern technology for “tracking” to espouse the course of diseases caused by smoking? We now
celebrate the Pyrrhic victory won with the ban, so that we are not forced to smoke without our consent.
The next phase of the battle should now shifts to saving the voiceless, hapless and helpless unborn
children. Some of them are brought into the world chronically sick from the infections from their
mother’s chimney. Maternal smoking during pregnancy remains a serious public health problem for
researchers and healthcare professionals. Smoking while pregnant puts both mother’s and baby’s life at risk. Cigarette smoke contains more than 2,500 chemicals, with, Nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide
thought to be the most dangerous to the foetus. These chemicals in tobacco smoke that are passed
on to the baby through the mother’s blood are known to cause cancer. Thus smoking during pregnancy
increases risks of complications in pregnancy and to cause serious adverse foetal outcomes including
low birth weight, still births, spontaneous abortions, decreased foetal growth, premature births, placental abruptions, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Other effects of smoking related to reproduction include lower estrogen levels leading to early menopause and links to infertility. Even
nursing mothers who smoke can pass along harmful chemicals from cigarettes to their babies in breast
milk. Eating a poor diet when pregnant and or breastfeeding may cause long-lasting health damage
to the child. Dr. Stephanie Bayol a researcher with the Animal studies emphasized this when she
said-“It seems that a mother’s diet whilst pregnant and breastfeeding is very important for the long–term health of the child”.
While we say that we are what we eat, it is also true that you are what your mother ate. Pregnancy we know can be difficult times for mothers, but it is also important that they
are aware that what they eat may affect their offspring. There is this African music that has become
the jingle for Mothering Sundays and Mothers’ Day celebrations. “Sweet mother-er-er, I will not forget
you for the suffer that you suffered for me-oo-ooo.” If children of this generation would be safely delivered from their mother’s chimney, they are likely to remix the music thus-“Bad mother-er-er, I will not forgive you for the suffer I suffered in your womboo- oo”. Instead of waiting till they grow up to wax their ignominious music, the government should make serious legislations banning pregnant and
nursing women from smoking so that everybody will join hands with doctors, gynecologists, pediatricians, public health officers, etc to save these voiceless feotuses or else we usher them half-dead
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