New York City Life Smokers under siege By Bob Yampolsky	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
肩身の狭いニューヨークのスモーカー 最近ニューヨーク市は、喫煙者に厳しい町に変わってきています。タバコの値段は大幅な増税によって一箱900円近くになり、レストランやバーなどを含めたすべての室内公共施設が全面禁煙になる日も近づいています。一時はタバコを吸っていたこともある筆者は、この変化をどう見ているのでしょうか？

Pity the poor smoker. First, New York City raises its taxes on cigarettes, so that a pack can now cost 6 dollars (¥720) or 7 dollars (¥840). Next, it embarks on a highly publicized anti-smoking campaign, providing a toll-free "Smoker's Quitline" and billboards all over the city - in English, Spanish, Chinese and Russian - asking "Quit yet?"

On the radio, the city's health commissioner says solemnly, "The tobacco companies spend 10 billion dollars (¥1.2 trillion) a year to try to convince you that secondhand smoke is harmless. Don't believe them. Secondhand smoke kills." And now Mayor Bloomberg, who by all accounts is an otherwise reasonable man, is exhibiting a nearly religious zeal in his efforts to ban smoking from all public indoor places, including bars and restaurants.

Mr. Bloomberg, a former pack-a-day smoker, says his concern is for the workers in such establishments. If you want to be a fool and ruin your own health, that's your own business, but you shouldn't have the right to harm the health of others.

My daughter, in third grade at public school, was given a book of anti-smoking propaganda about "the Sinister Smoke Ring." The back cover summarizes the story: "Holy smoke! Brother Bear has started hanging out with the Too-Tall Gang. What does the gang like to do for fun? Pick on small bears, play nasty pranks and worst of all, smoke cigarettes!"

Pretty soon, the only place where smokers will be able to smoke (provided there still are any smokers left) is outside, and even there, there are restrictions. Office buildings now have signs asking smokers to get away from the front of the building. And people who smoke in parks or on the sidewalk are frequently subject to nasty glances.

My father smoked two packs a day from the time he was 15, and so in general I am sympathetic to smokers. I've even tried to join their ranks, but I've never managed to stay. The best I ever got at it was a number of years ago when I had a job at a terrible company. More than anything else, smoking was an excuse to get in the elevator, go downstairs and step outside.

It was also a chance to talk freely with fellow workers. All of us disliked our jobs, and we shared a certain fatalistic camaraderie as we stood watching the traffic on Park Avenue go by, poisoning our lungs and hoping to postpone for just a puff or two our return to the office upstairs.

You also interact more with strangers, too, when you smoke. Outside Grand Central once, a young woman in a business suit and with a very tight expression on her face came up to me and said, "I'll give you a dollar for a cigarette." It was clear what her situation was. She had quit, or was trying to quit, and did not want to buy a full pack, but she very much needed a cigarette NOW. I gave her one and did not take her dollar.

Another time, a very roughly dressed woman came up to me, and told me how she was due to see the judge that afternoon. "You don't think he'll put me away, mister, do you?" I gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. "I hope he's nice like you, mister." I gave her another one.

At times I've handed over my entire pack to homeless men. Arguably, I wasn't doing them a favor, but these are men whom you'll see searching the sidewalk for butts big enough to smoke, tenderly straightening out the crushed ones, and the look I'd see in their eyes was something close to joy.

Those days are over now. By this I mean firstly that I no longer smoke, and cannot imagine myself ever doing so. Although there are pleasures in smoking, to be sure, in the end you're just smoking to satisfy your cravings. Getting hooked on cigarettes is like giving yourself a potentially fatal rash just to enjoy the pleasure of scratching it.

Secondly I mean that New York is no longer a smoker's town. In a sense I admire the smoker, sticking to his ways despite the persecution and ostracism he suffers, and not caring how much he annoys others (there's a true New Yorker for you!) but you get the feeling that his days may indeed be numbered.

A recent cover of The New Yorker showed several smokers in a cage, as in a zoo, with non-smokers on the outside gawking at them. The title of the drawing: "Endangered Species."

Shukan ST: Nov. 22, 2002

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