Roman Arbitman: Ritual Campaign

About the anti -tobacco attack

Imagine a badly educated patrol dog who at the crucial moment abandons his post and rushes behind a cat passing by. The dog is not a sabotage, oh no! He only in a new way prioritizes to the best of his own, that is, dog, understanding the momentary conjuncture. Of course, he does not forget that the person entrusted him with the protection of something important, but right now the pursuit of the cat seems to the PSU business much more important.

So about the Russian state. It is not able to effectively protect its citizens from inflation, unemployment, ecological crisis, a high level of crime, a low standard of living, bad roads, fools in power and so on - but not because it does not want to do it fundamentally, but since it has no time. You will tolerate here for now, the state is dismissed on the run. You see, our problems are more serious: the day before yesterday we helped the Olympians deal with their urine, yesterday they pressed foreign food with bulldozers, and today the helmet to the revenue of this prominent man - the king of a distant warring country.

Recently, the state with the same frightening enthusiasm undertook to defend the population from smoking, having managed to advance far in this field. If earlier, cigarettes packaging were disfigured only with frightening inscriptions, now terrible pictures were added to them in the spirit of the Soviet SanDsvet. The sale of tobacco products near educational institutions and medical institutions is limited. The owners of stores (except for specialized), even if there is an official license for trading tobacco products, is strictly forbidden to put the assortment on the windows and should hide packs behind opaque shields, explaining in the words what is available and what is not. Smoking in public places is prohibited. The "halls for smokers" have gone the past, in restaurants and cafes you can not smoke at all. A couple of years ago, passengers of long -distance trains could drag on a cigarette in the vestibules, but now the entire territory of the train for smokers is prohibited.

The country's top leaders will be officially recognized as immortal

And this is only the preliminary stage of the campaign. The press appeared in the press a new anti -tobacco concept developed by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation for 2017–2022. Among the planned measures, the following are distinguished: a complete ban on smoking in communal apartments, at public transport stops, at a distance of less than three meters from the entrances to pedestrian crossings. It is proposed to limit smoking on the balconies of apartments, prohibit the sale of cigarettes at the cash desks of supermarkets (even if these cigarettes are not visible), increase the working day of smokers during the outbursts, without compensation ... What unites these measures? First of all, their prohibitive character, reaching the point of absurdity (I imagine how buyers will be rushed through supermarkets without finding cigarettes in familiar places, and sellers will not even be able to tell them where to look, otherwise this is an unacceptable advertisement!). But not only.

The second feature of the Russian anti -tobacco campaign is a natural continuation of the first. In Europe and the United States, as you know, they are fighting smoking, but at the same time they treat consumers of tobacco with understanding, trying to take into account their interests and, most importantly, do not humiliate their dignity. Everywhere where it is required, there are specially equipped sites, where smoking citizens can surrender to their petty weakness, without interfering with everything else. In Russia, the struggle does not go with a social phenomenon as such, but primarily with its living subjects, Russian smokers, and more like a total mockery. The state is like a latent sadist: give him only a reason legally to torment citizens, and it will immediately make their life unbearable.

The third feature is the obvious hypocrisy of the developers of the concept. We are not watching the frontal attack on evil, that is, to tobacco, which, like alcohol, brings considerable income to the treasury (and therefore will remain on sale in any weather), and with ritual flank attacks. Specialists of the Ministry of Health play propaganda games, hiding cigarettes, formally fixing their absence and reporting about the next victories. With the same success, the Ministry of Health may also announce the phased elimination of mortality in Russia: “bad” statistics will be hidden from prying eyes, cemeteries will be turned into regimen objects, and necrologues will be liquidated as a genre. Ordinary citizens who have gone into another world will be considered, for example, those who have gone abroad or missing ... Well, the country's top leadership will be officially recognized as immortal.

Roman Arbitman - Saratov writer

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office