From now on, only smokeless debauchery

Wrote several articles about the new anti-smoking law. Especially for the greatest audience coverage, I posted them not only in my Journal, but also wherever I could. Received hundreds of responses.

About a third of readers completely agree with me. Another third, as always, do not understand what I mean at all and argue about the harm from cigarettes to health. But a third simply speak exclusively from a position of strength. Smoking, they say, is a sin and a bad habit, so shut up and humble yourself. If you don’t put up with it, then we... Well, what do you mean?

Okay, I'm tired, let's finish with regard to smoking, I hope it is clear to everyone that I chose both the new anti-tobacco law and the conversation about it solely as an example and model. Regarding the specific essence, then, you know, if even under the Soviet regime I managed to personally resolve almost all issues for myself from freedom of information to housing and met the gray 80s in a five-room apartment on Oktyabrskaya Square with a magnificent multi-thousand-volume library, then really I Now, again for myself personally, I can’t figure out where I can smoke a cigarette with a glass of vodka in Moscow and the surrounding area? I beg you...

So, of course, it’s not about me and not about the cigarette. I'm talking about the general principles of mutual coexistence and its at least theoretical possibility. Or impossibility. Therefore, let’s take all these anti-smoking measures simply as a convention and imagine, for brevity, that such a conditional law is being adopted:

1. Ban on advertising.

2. Significant price increase.

3. Prohibition of consumption in public places.

4. Sale only in large stores.

5. Smoking ban in the workplace.

And I, for example, absolutely agree with all points. But I am fundamentally not satisfied with just the nuance of one of them. A limitless, to the point of insanity, expansion of the very concept of “public place”, in which there is not a single restaurant, bar, coffee shop or pub in the country in which smoking is allowed. And I propose to come to an agreement with me on this topic. Moreover, on extremely unfavorable and discriminatory conditions for me.

Moreover, if they are not enough, I am ready to think for myself and listen to compromise options that are even tougher towards me, but at least to the most minimal extent, from others. And if they hear me and we agree, in all other respects I undertake to be an ideal and exemplary executor of this law.

But no. No negotiations. Only complete and unconditional surrender. You, Vasiliev, shut up and obey the law, you no longer have any rights to anything.

My dears, you are good! What kind of megalomania does everyone have? Well, did you really imagine yourself as the Red Army in 1945 near Berlin? Your very smart and moral position will end in a completely different way. If so, I will say, since you do not even want to discuss the slightest concessions with me, then I saw your entire law in its entirety in my grave. And where I can, I will break it. I’ll smoke on the train, I’ll blow smoke in someone else’s building, and I’ll even find somewhere to smoke in the hospital. And can you handle me? Yeah, very brave. Somehow, over the last fifty years, no one has been able to do this, and believe me, there were specialists who were no match for you.

But this is just me and just about “smoking in public places”. But for some, on the contrary, a cigarette in a restaurant does not matter at all, since he does not go there. But the price is very important. Let's say a person can still pull a hundred rubles, but five hundred is already a complete rope for him. But you don’t want to discuss anything with him either. So he will send your entire law to hell. A couple of years ago in Poland, I saw how wonderfully Warsaw got along without buying cigarettes in stores at all: they took contraband from the gypsies at three times the price, the police ran around with their tongues hanging out, and could not do anything.

And for the third, the most unacceptable thing is a non-smoking place of work. And you are rude to him and do not enter into any conversations. This is no longer relevant for me, but if I were still completely in business, I would simply solve the problem in my own offices. There are a thousand ways, but at least he kicked out all the non-smokers under other plausible pretexts and didn’t let anyone in the door without a warrant. And if some kind of check breaks through, go prove it - it was someone outsider who came in and made a fuss, please look for it and investigate.

And this is when we are each on our own. What if we unite, and I also start buying cheap contraband and bringing it to someone specially and on purpose to the workplace, so that they all get smoked until they’re blue in the face? And will I find my accomplices in dirty tricks among the miners who want to buy cheap cigarettes in the stall at the exit of the mine, and among the heads of offices who for decades have not imagined leading a team without a couple of puffs in a difficult moment of life?

I'll say it again. It's not about smoking. Replace cigarettes in this scheme with anything else, the result will be the same.

So this is all complete nonsense. Either people will come to an agreement, or no laws will work. And all your arrogance, like, we ordered you, and your job is to do it and not blather, it’s out of nowhere and not worth a penny.

And this is one of the few moments that doesn’t even have much to do with that sacred cow that I always pray for, called “the inevitable and regular change of power.” Because without changing something particularly stuck in your heads, no amount of power will help anything.

Although it is, of course, necessary to change the power, where would I be without my sacred cow... But I’m ready to discuss even this with you. Which is what I do all the time. Realizing that it’s no use. But being a cheerful optimist. Smokers. And even drinkers.

http://auvasilev.livejournal.com/496236.html