Smoking in Europe

by · July 19, 2013

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

I’m departing a bit from the usual timbre of this blog, so I hope you bear with me.

I just got landed back in the USA a couple of nights ago from a 2 week trip to Europe. I spent a bulk of my time in London, England, but also spent some time in Geneva, Switzerland. One thing I found interesting was how many young and middle-aged people smoked. There were much more than I had anticipated. Cigars, cigarettes, and marijuana were seemingly everywhere. No matter where I was: the pub, a concert, on the street, people everywhere were smoking. Yet, each package had an awful looking sticker that our own FDA wants tobacco companies to use for their products here in the states. So, it got me thinking about the whole smoking and warning label issue. I decided to look at the statistics of smokers in Europe (I won’t bother posting, but you can easily find via Google), and found that almost 30% of the people over 15 years old in the WHO’s European region smoke. That’s quite a bit more than I anticipated considering how aggressive countries in Europe have been with banning smoking in public places and forcing companies to use large warning stickers on their products.

“So, who cares?” you may ask. Well, we all should. And the reason why is simple: warning labels here in the US. As you are probably aware, there has been a battle raging recently over the FDA forcing tobacco companies to stick large warning labels on their products to help deter the use of tobacco products. The FDA finally retreated a bit a few months ago and said it would study the issue more, but the truth is, labeling won’t deter someone from smoking. Europe has been forcing companies to label products for years. Yet, this hasn’t curbed smoking. Everyone who smokes whatever tobacco product of choice already knows how “bad it is” for them without the aid of any label on the package. And even with huge, government mandated warning stickers, people still smoke. So why even bother to waste money labeling products if they have no real effect? Hopefully these truths will help prevent our tobacco companies from falling prey to another gimmick by the government to curb our affinities. Just let us smoke in piece, and we won’t tell you how Big Macs and Coca-Cola are bad for you by sticking graphic warning labels of blocked arteries and diabetic amputees on your food.

imageimage_1Cigarette box from England

Cohiba box from Switzerland:

image_2Top label reads (in French): Smoking inflicts serious damage on you and others around you.

image_3Bottom label reads: Smoking may reduce the blood flow and cause impotence.

Knakje is a Dutch cigar company a friend from Amsterdam brought to Geneva. (Pretty tasty if you get the chance to try.)

image_4Top label reads: Smoking inflicts serious damage on you and others around you.

photoBottom label reads: Smoking causes fatal lung cancer

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The Hippie

Having grown up in the South, The Hippie was no stranger to tobacco. Although a city boy, his farming cousins were anything but, and visiting them frequently allowed him to watch the process of tobacco grow from seedling to harvest to curing in the barns. Both grandfathers enjoyed a pipe, and that opened up a new door to a more fragrant and sophisticated way to smoke. The smell was intoxicating. Then in the 90s, prominent athletes and actors really started to endorse cigar smoking. Just like pipe tobacco, the smell was unique and enjoyable, and promoted a more cultured way to enjoy tobacco. Remembering Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen smoking cigars after winning another championship for the Chicago Bulls, or seeing actors like Jack Nicholson made cigar smoking mainstream. Friends, too, were enjoying cigars and the passion had started. Everything else is, as they say, history. He was a regular contributor to Tiki Bar Online before being a founding member of Leaf Enthusiast.

Small Batch Cigar

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