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10 November, 2005

Evil weed indeed

Local Hero wonders why Sandlanders are so hooked on their fags:

"Tell me. Why do people in this country smoke so much?"

Perhaps because smoking is seen (ie marketed) here as a traditional, ancient "cultural" practice - despite the fact it came over from America only a few hundred years ago, and Uncle Sam continues to profit today by ravaging Middle Eastern wallets and lungs.

It's not big, it's not tough, it's not manly. Smoking shrivels your testicles, weakens your sperm, and renders you far feebler and far less masculine than you otherwise would be. For what? So fat American and other western tobacco executives can gloat over their profits, probably while puffing fat, expensive cigars safe in the knowledge that their private healthcare will be able to buy them someone else's heart and lungs when theirs eventually fails.

Maybe if the anti-smoking campaigners pointed out that tobacco is yet another American exploitation of Arabs, males in particularly wouldn't feel so culturally welded to their nasty little cancer sticks.

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16 Comments:

Blogger samuraisam said...

smoking is bad children.

10 November, 2005 08:26  
Blogger Tim Newman said...

People smoke so much here for the same reason they do in much of the non-Western world: it is dirt cheap to do so.

10 November, 2005 09:21  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What I can't for the life of me understand is " how did the malls revoke their non smoking policy"?

quite clearly smoking is harmful to the individual and passive smoking is proven to be a cause for asthma and other lung related diseases.

so what justification do these malls have? is the smoking lobby here so strong?

were they afraid of a slight dip in business because smokers would shy away?? didnt they realise that the phenomenon would only last for a month or two until the smokers realised 'it was that way or the highway' and had no choice but to put off in the malls..

i'm amazed sometimes at such a level of ignorance.

10 November, 2005 11:05  
Blogger Tim Newman said...

Timothy - People don't smoke because it's cheap.

I didn't say it was - I said they smoke so much here because it is dirt cheap to do so. As you say, whacking the price up would drive the level of smoking down considerably.

10 November, 2005 12:28  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Damn,

And I thought this post was going to be about smokig some other weed.

10 November, 2005 12:57  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As far as I know it wasn't the malls decision to revoke the ban certain people just ignored it and assumed they were above the law. Once they started doing it others followed.

Bit like speeding & hard shoulders on the roads - There is a law but if it doesn't suit me it becomes null and void.

10 November, 2005 15:37  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon @ 15.37

maybe offically they didnt revoke it, but as far as I know ALL NON SMOKING signs have been removed. and when questioned all the MALL had the stand 'no comment'

Dubai mall are actually a smoker's paradise.. you see countless teens and 20 somethings puffing away talking animately on their mobiles or having a starbucks or costa coffee oblivious to the dangers of smoking. and its just not them. they take their cue from the older generation who think its their inalienable right to destroy their lungs and others with them

10 November, 2005 16:15  
Blogger qadi said...

Everyone knows that beating your wife, not smoking, is manly! What's wrong with these people???

10 November, 2005 18:30  
Blogger BrainSyke said...

I dont think smoking is cheap anymore anywhere.

10 November, 2005 21:14  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Folks in the West have, for the most part, been weaned away from cigarettes these last 30 years by incessant reminders of just how brutal they are to your health. People who do smoke know they should quit, or else have (as any small percentage of humans will) - and know they have - a distinct death wish.

People here have never been exposed to these truths, and it's a hard sell to someone who is addicted - and remember that nicotine is perhaps the single most addictive substance on earth. The only incentives people have here to quit are imminent death. The relative cheapness of cigaretts contributes to their prevalence, but expense really only forces users to cut down; addicts don't care how much their addictions cost. Oh, and expensive cigarettes are more difficult for young people to obtain; that's another way that the gateway to smoking's been made less open elsewhere.

For me, being here is a bit like the 1970s: pull tabs on the cans, smoke drifting across my meal. (Men in dresses? hmmm... maybe!) Ah, nostalgia... Break out the polyester!

10 November, 2005 21:23  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ameriki Harami! (while smoking a Marlboro Red and driving a Chevy Lumina SS enroute to a bar to have a Bud.)

11 November, 2005 00:42  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, lets face it. Everyoe knows that its bad for you. But we choose to ignore it to get the occasional high. At least the US is trying to do soemthing about it by fighting a lawsuit against big tobacco.

The rest of the world (well most of it) is lucky it doesnt have to get into something like that.

Dubai should ban public smoking but it won't because it knows it can't enforce it. Almost the entire police force smokes, high ranking officials smoke, its just soemthing they can't stop. So, they gave up. "No Comment" ? I'm not surprised. They're just ashamed about it all.

11 November, 2005 12:14  
Blogger samuraisam said...

The UAE government lodged on Thursday a document of its official joining the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control with the UN.
The document, signed by Foreign Minister Rashid Abdullah, was deposited at the international organsiation by the UAE Permanent Representative at the UN, Abdul Aziz Nasser Al Shamsi, through a message he sent to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The document contains a UAE pledge to implement terms and conditions of the convention.

11 November, 2005 23:05  
Blogger kingfisher said...

We all know how effective the UN is...
... Hotel Rwanda anyone?

Shit. Another toothless resolution by some fat butted politicians.

Ban smoking in all public places or where children have access. Keep it in bars and clubs perhaps, where the kids can't go. Once a person reaches the legal age of adulthood, they can do as they please. Till then they must be protected by responsible adult decisions.

12 November, 2005 15:33  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

kingfisher > let's drink to that..

oooops sorry..

cheers

:)

12 November, 2005 15:49  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh man wtf is ur problem with weed (I'm talking to all Emirates) it's just a plant, we are still smoking get over it, I don't say legalize it but 4 years in jail just for possession is not logical...

16 September, 2009 18:35  

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