Pipe Smokers Intelligencer

And now for a taste of the drastic tobacco restrictions in the international scene. 

While visiting the fabulous Conclave  of Richmond (Va.) Pipe Smokers in Richmond, of course, the one-time tobacco capital of the known world, I had the opportunity to chat with Vernon Vig, president of the United Pipe Clubs of America (UPCA). 

A quick note about UPCA from its web site: The United Pipe Clubs of America (UPCA) was organized in 2002 as a national federation of pipe clubs in the United States. Its purpose is to promote and protect the interests of the American pipe smoking community by encouraging and assisting in the formation of local pipe clubs and actively supporting their activities, including pipe shows and pipe smoking competitions.

UPCA’s broader goals are to bring American pipe smokers together by serving as a liaison to facilitate the sharing of information and ideas between its member clubs and to maintain smokers’ enthusiasm for the hobby by presenting a positive public image of the culture and traditions of pipe smoking and collecting.

 

You can learn more about UPCA here.

Okay, back to Vernon Vig and the international scene.

“Six or seven yearsago all of the world was laughing at the U.S. and our smoking restrictions,” Vig says.

Now, they are no longer laughing.

“If I were them, I would be worried. This is not California we are talking about. This is Europe.”

In every European Union nation today, he says, there are problems. Nowhere can a person smoke in public. That is zero. Nada. Zip.

“Even in France,” he says. “I worked with a lawyer in France who quit smoking. He said it was just too difficult.”

Italy, he says, has some very strict restrictions. That’s Italy, folks, where smoking is a cultural thing and some of the best pipe artisans in the world reside.

Germany has problems, as well, but it depends mainly on the state, or Lander, in which a smoker resides. Some Landers are not near as strict as others are.

“In some areas, they are more flexible and exercise a little more common sense.”

To illustrate, he says that a couple of years ago, a pipe club held a smoking contest, and the entire town turned out for it in support.

“That was one of the more interesting things I’ve seen. The town was there to honor the pipe club. Even the mayor of the town was there, as well as other politicians.”

In addition, although the EU has not gone the way of America with the FDA being put in charge, tobacco tins from the EU bear large black and white warning labels.

“This anti-smoking thing has spread world wide,” he says.

Politicians see the numbers and back the anti-smoking movement, he says.

One of the real threats, however, is second-hand smoke. That, he says, is a sleeping giant and needs to be debunked. (Vig has sent me the name of a book by Geoffrey C. Kabat, Hyping Health Riskspublished in 2008 by Columbia University Press. Dr. Kabat is a cancer epidemiologist on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where Vig’s wife also teaches. I will have more on the book in another post).

Vig says the book reports that there is no medical evidence of the harm of second-hand smoke.

As you might expect, the book has not received much play in the mainstream press. I do not expect that it will.

In the meantime, rest assured that we are not alone. All of Europe is feeling the pinch of the anti-smoking campaign.

Jimmy Craig, who is taking over the late William Ashton-Taylor’s British pipe making business, and Ian D. Walker of Northern Briars, Cheshire, England, both told me that the small mom and pop pubs in England are closing daily. Their former patrons can no longer smoke and enjoy a pint of their favorite brew.

So, you lose the business and the jobs. The state loses the tax revenue, and the patron loses the camaraderie around a pipe and a pint.

I witnessed first hand on a recent trip to France what has happened there. About four years ago when I was visiting France, people were in the cafes, enjoying themselves, and smoking. This past June, you had to take your coffee and meal outside if you wanted to smoke. And then you drew stern stares.

This is not your father’s or mother’s world any longer. Our rights to choose a lifestyle are being eroded worldwide. I fear the day is coming in which some government goon will tell me I can no longer smoke in my own home, or on my back porch.

It will be time then to turn out the lights. The party is over.