On Giving Up Smoking

ON GIVING UP SMOKING

Ajit Chaudhuri – October 2019

I am trying to give up smoking. Informing people about this often leads to unsolicited advice such as ‘it is only a matter of will power overcoming Wills power’ or gratuitous comments like ‘it is easy – I have done it many times’. Some ask why is it so hard and, when I think about it, for me it is a combination of three reasons. One, I respect time! Two, I like it! And three, because of the law of perverse incentives!

Allow me to expound!

On one – a downside of always being on time in a society that is never on time is the time on my hands before every appointment, meeting, and occasion. The best way to pass this time? Catching up on Youtube videos? Speaking with assorted acquaintances on the phone? Checking email? No thanks – I prefer a smoke!

On two – there is a couplet that goes ‘mandir masjid dono mein sir jhuka ke jata hoon, insaan se khuda na banoo isliye thoda sa paap bhi karta hoon’ (I bow my head in both temples and mosques but, just so that I don’t turn from person into God, I sin a little as well). A full and balanced life requires at least one vice and, if you have to have one, smoking is a good vice to have. It harms only the smoker, unlike alcohol and hard drugs which takes the user’s family down as well (and destroys society too, if large numbers are indulging). This is corroborated in a 2010 survey in Britain called the Drug Harm Score (described in the article ‘A Sober Brawl’ in The Economist issue of 19^th October 2019) that suggests that, on a score of 1 to 100 combining harm to users with harm to others, tobacco stands at 27, well below alcohol (70 plus) and heroin (55) though above ecstasy (9 – but I am beyond frequenting rave parties) and cannabis (20 – but smells like a Turkish brothel).

And finally, on three – a perverse incentive by definition is one that has a result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers, a form of negative unintended consequence. What does this have to do with giving up smoking? Well, the genius administrators at my office purport to discourage smoking by disallowing it within the premises except for one dark corner of the roof. And, most pretty young women at office smoke. Smoking thereby gives me a reason to escape from my desk and meet them, away from prying eyes and running mouths, in a non-hierarchical and non-judgmental space where closed cliques are formed that cut across departmental silos. We discuss friendship, love life, et al, and all of this during work hours. And the envious looks I get from my male colleagues when I am with them in the office corridor or at the coffee machine, and I wave at (and get a smile from) a passing female smoking acquaintance, are to die for. What’s the incentive to stop?