Up in Smoke

While policymakers are making a modest effort to curb smoking in Turkey, the tide has not yet turned.  Cigarette smoke hangs in the air outside office buildings, in courtyards, taxi cabs and outdoor restaurants. Everyone smokes; men, women, young and old.  Ashtrays are perched on outdoor dining and coffee shop tables everywhere you go. This, despite packaging that boasts clear and succint health warnings, like " cigarette smoking causes cancer, " in bold black and white graphics.  These dire warnings are punctuated with graphic illustrations of human  body parts disfigured by glossy tumors. No one seems to notice.   Cigarettes are expensive. Given the rapidly rising cost of living, most working class folks can ill afford their smoking habit.  Still smoking seems to be an unquestioned social ritual.  Cigarettes dangle from the lips of bus drivers and security guards, office workers and students, old women sitting on park benches,young women sitting on bar stools and old men playing backgammom at coffeeshops.

Stepping into public spaces where stale smoke  hangs heavy in the air  brings a rush of memories from a time when Americans indulged their own addiction to tobacco without concern for their future health.  It takes me back to the 1960's and 70's, before the link between cancer and smoking was cemented into our public awareness.  It brings back memories of my father and his ever present pack of Benson & Hedges.  The smell triggers memories of raucous family gatherings where the adults smoked and drank and played cards late into the  night.  Times when the children were excused from early bedtimes and romped through the house playing hide and seek, eating potato chips slathered with onion dip and sneaking the occassional sip of beer from a bottle left unattended on the kitchen counter.

Times when the future seemed less important than the pleasures of the moment.  While I am  appreciative of the  health benefits of a smoke-free lifestyle and grateful for the fresh air quality of our public spaces, I miss the free and unfettered enjoyment of socializing without fear of reprisal, judgement or future consequence.