Esperando para espirar

People here are living on borrowed time.

Actually, substitute 'living' for 'smoking'. And 'on borrowed time' for 'all the time'. And 'on the cheap' as well, come to think of it. But not for much longer. Probably.

Official figures say that one in three people in Spain smoke. Here in Barcelona, it's at least four times that.

Smoking is part of the culture. Cigarettes are commonly seen not just as an aid to thought or relaxation; it's also breakfast, decongestant, aphrodisiac and aspirin. It's the perfect accompaniment to every meal; it's the the Swiss army knife of habits. It's a sport. It's a hobby. Some people may even claim it as a profession. A borrowed cigarette in Barca is the gift that keeps on giving.

But still the anti-smoking groups in Spain, like some lunatic fringe, persist. A few years ago they finally achieved a tiny victory (after 300 years of trying) when smoking was finally banned in most offices and classrooms, much to the frustration of tense journos and bearded philosophy tutors. But this was seen as a minor glitch in a country where thoughtful moments, like the coffee and the politics, usually come ready filtered. Policemen are allowed to smoke on duty (and usually do), and although many restaurants offer 'no-smoking' areas, these sections are easy to spot as they're the ones where the ashtrays are only half-full.

At night time, things go up a notch. Opening the door to a Barcelona bar puts sci-fi airlocks to shame; as smoke pours out, you see vague shapes among the mist, small red lights glow everywhere and after five minutes your clothes don't so much smell as exhale. If everyone partying outside the old city breathed out at the same time, they could surround the moon with a perfect smoke ring. If the old city joined in, NASA would panic and David Copperfield would take the credit.

This dedication is hardly surprising. A pack of cigarettes costs less than a pack of decent biscuits. The old-style Tabacs are also very cool places, with shelves of mahogany filled with cigars that are designed to tell your subconscious that smoking is big, hard, clever and something your father would approve of. The Tabacs' other products add more subtle vibes, as they sell everything from phone cards (we help you communicate with your friends) to sweets (you can trust us from an early age), stamps (government-approved) and lottery tickets (life's a gamble - so why not enjoy it?).

Claiming to be a non-smoker in Spain gets the same reaction as saying you never use words with the letter 'w' in it. A local artist called Marti Guixe has even invented a gadget that looks like a normal cigarette but is in fact hollow with a funnel at the end. He calls it 'The passive smoking cigarette', "a tool that allows you to smoke passively in a professional way. Non-smokers have less tools for communication and so need something to perform the same rituals as an active smoker." The message is clear - everyone wants to be a smoker and those that aren't just lack the necessary commitment.

However, Europe isn't happy. Along with phasing out tobacco advertising, Spain should be doing more to help its lungs than just a change of font on the Surgeon General's warning. The news that Ireland's pubs and bars are soon to be smoke-free was met with incredulous laughter here (especially among the several thousand landlords of Barcelona's Irish pubs), but soon the chuckles had faded into uneasy silence. If even Ireland has fallen, who's to say that we won't be next?

Smoking among the young may still be spreading like wild fire, but deep-down, people know that they are will be the last generation of self-harmers to enjoy the romanticism, aesthetic pleasure and creative clich�s of drifting smoke and public flame. Inevitably, the smug do-gooders (aka doctors) in Brussels will win through and, at some point in the near future, the old dinosaur smokers will be left huddled together gazing at society's nice-but-dull evolution through the murky windows of private clubs.

But there's a long way to go before ashtrays go the way of asbestos, and right now things here seem safe. After all, a tobacco firm's headquarters has few rooms but plenty of lobbies, and the industry is flexing its muscles purely for self-preservation. Governments worldwide are stumbling over the issue, and here is no different. The Spanish government has put a limit on nicotine levels in cigarettes (to be implemented by 2004) and says it wants to increase tobacco tax to similar levels to the UK, which would reduce its absolute revenue but also actively decrease the number of people taking up smoking. But thus far nothing has happened.

The main reason for this is, ironically, Brussels' fault. The Spanish parliament can't increase the price of cigarettes without automatically taking inflation rates above the recommended Euro level; despite pleas to the European Bank, cigarettes have been firmly placed at the bottom of the shopping basket of key goods that determine inflation, next to copies of Hello and strawberry bootlaces. For now at least, fags stay cheap, smoke still lingers and both tax revenue and lungs sit firmly in the black.

Until this paradox is solved, pledges to reduce smoking in Spain will remain little more than notes scribbled in biro on the back of a cigarette packet. The ubiquitous smokers of Barcelona can breathe easy once more.

Posted by Andrew Losowsky at February 23, 2003 06:35 PM | TrackBack