De bevrijding van de rokers

With regard to the last great persecution of the 20th century, is it possible that we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel?

The last great persecution experienced in this most repressive of all centuries is, of course, the hysterical persecution of tobacco. And the light that I hope we are seeing is the lighting of an elegant Marlboro poised on the lips of a sophisticated sybarite. Is it not about time that discerning adults be free to light up in a proper setting? In the land of the free and the home of the brave, I view cigarette smoking as a First Amendment Right.

Now there are indications that cigarette smokers have their growing vanguards of freedom fighters. The most glamorous of these civil libertarians is, it appears, Nicole Kidman, the Oscar-winning actress, who boldly enjoyed a smoke the other day during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival. Almost immediately she was harassed by her director, Lars Von Trier, who directed her new move, inelegantly titled, “Dogville.” The ugly name was, I assume, his idea, not hers. He has shown himself to be a cad. She is showing herself to be a lady of taste and independence.

I salute her, notwithstanding her opposition to the recent war in Iraq. Iraqis are famous cigarette smokers, so I suppose it is possible that Nicole, in her opposition to the war, was merely showing solidarity with the Iraqis in their right to enjoy tobacco in public places. Perhaps she feared an American expeditionary force would bring with it the tobacco patrols that now haunt such once-free American cities as New York, governed by the Suicide Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Raise those taxes a bit higher, Mike, and even non-smokers will call for your neck.