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| A beautifully growing tobacco plant hasn't a beautiful effect on our health |
During the last years the discussion about eating food on the streets has grown. It might not be a good trend that people eat in public. Having a meal is namely very important for social and health reasons and therefore asks for serious concentration. What about the growing number of smokers on the streets?
Smoking was very popular after WWII. It used to be just for the rich but soon lighting a cigarette was accepted by all even for working class. Smokers where facilitated with ashtrays in cinemas and public transport, television series and films filled with by smoking persons and offices where filled with a blue mist.
When a clear relation between smoking and all kinds of chronic diseases was proved, the anti-smokers lobby grew. From that moment on smoking in public buildings wasn’t allowed anymore or only in designated areas. Airplanes and public transport became non-smoking, commercials were only allowed at special occasions and cigarettes couldn’t be sold to persons under a certain age anymore. Special taxes were introduced similar to the one they are considering for fats now.
Now smokers are moved out of the buildings we see them more often on the streets. Before you enter your office, a restaurant or the train station, you might have to walk through a smelly mist caused by the smokers. The strict regulations should discourage people to smoke and protect others from suffering of effects caused by the addictive habit. But in effect we seem to suffer more than ever.
Smoking also influences our agriculture. The biggest European tobacco growing countries are Italy, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece and France. Like any other plant it needs soil, water, some food (read: fertilizers) and sunlight to grow. The plantations absorb a significant part of our agricultural area. A smoker should not forget that every cigarette he lights not only has a negative effect on his health and to that of those around him but also uses some of our valuable agricultural area.
The discussion of European food security and health now seems to focus mainly on animal diseases, bio-fuels and obesities in relation to the subsidies going to European agriculture. But we should not forget to remember the tobacco industries. If this bad habit would be banned we will have more space and energy left to grow food we can really survive on. Maybe this is a convincing argument to stop now?
