Smokers Unite!: A Response
Marko Kouthouri-Whittaker, MPhys (hons) Physics, Department of Physics
Marko Kouthouri-Whittaker responds to a provocative call to arms published in the student newspaper ‘Sul’ in 1971.
The percentage of adults who smoked back in the 1970s was around 40-50% but now in Bath it’s around 10%. I guess the smokers’ ‘revolution’ didn’t come to fruition as Pete had hoped but it was a valiant effort. Those 10% of people are keeping Pete’s fire for ‘revolution’ alive. I doubt Pete nor Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897), who advocated for the ban of all smoking in the streets of Bath, would be completely satisfied with these statistics. Nor would they get along with each other but luckily for them they didn’t live during the same period. There will always be smokers for Pete to enjoy the company of and public places for Pitman to breathe in the fresh air.
One of Pete’s major concerns of the ‘Great Smoke War I’ and the country’s crackdown on smoking was what would replace smoking. He envisioned apocalypse as men and women would have nothing to do but ‘play’ with each other, on public transport, in school toilets and even in cafés. But I don’t think he has anything to fear as people have found the modern alternative to smoking, vaping. Now people will vape together in the school toilets and on public transport. Although only around 11% of the population vape, compared to the almost 50% of people who smoked in 1971. And even when you combine today’s smoking and vaping populations it’s still only around 20% of the UK. It seems that these are the consequences of losing the ‘Great Smoke War I’. Did Pete really fear social isolation as smoking areas would be slowly removed or was he just bored and wanted to incite revolution, like a very traditional student?
I have seen both smokers and vapers in the short time I’ve been here in Bath, and there seems to be no conflict between the two groups, in fact I think they’re living in harmony. Maybe they’re allies in the coming ‘Great Smoke War II’ or maybe they’re just socialising, like the way students like Pete Marko did in 1971. Again, I highly doubt that Sir Isaac Pitman would endorse this sort of socialising, but I think he would really enjoy the clean air on public transport, where smoking and vaping isn’t allowed. Although it may not be the sort of change Pitman could have ever imagined, Bath is more smoke free now that it was in 1971.