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Every few hours, when I get tired of sneaking a cheeky vape in the millions of bathrooms and liminal stairwells that litter my hospital, I'll head over to the back of the building, in a secluded, roped off area that's the de-facto smoker's haunt of the place.
An ankle height chain dangles at the approach, as do signs for, among other things, no parking, and an enjoinder against loitering because there's construction ongoing up above.
It might say something about the nature of the universe that the tripping hazard produced by that chain far outweighs that of the falling debris, when it exists. Not the prohibition on smoking, of course, but since you can't quite see the signs from there, everyone pretends they don't exist.
There's a quiet camaraderie at play, doctors huddling together for a chemical pick-me-up after a grueling day at work, a good chunk of which was spent admonishing their patients for the same indulgence they're engaging in.
Did I mention this is an oncology hospital, or at least department big enough to be a standalone one? I suppose that's relevant too.
You can see a combination of quiet guilt, resignation and combativeness in their eyes. Yes. We know this is bad for us. We know you know. What are you going to do about it? Not smoke? Perish the thought, and pass me another. How's that patient with COPD doing? Yeah, he won't quit, even if it kills him, and given that he's got end stage lung cancer with brain mets, we're half a mind to wheel him out, nebulizer in tow, for a couple to greet the last dawn of his life, and just the start of another for us.
I stand there puffing on my vape, experiencing an exceedingly mild, almost homeopathic sense of smugness and superiority. Look at them, burning out their lungs, huffing and puffing when I pass them on the stairwells, and for what, the same nicotine I get, without the stink and almost all of the drawbacks beyond a nicotine dependency?
The vape ban in India has been a disaster, and these are the consequences. I muse on the black comedy that is existence with a black coffee in hand, that the tobacco lobbyists in here got a final swing in by banning the cheaper, healthier alternative.
I ignore the occasional curious glance at my little electing facsimile, the incongruity of a cigarette with an usb port. I'm probably the only one. In turn, I ignore the shifty consultants who don't meet my eye, still harboring in their heart of hearts the feeling they need to do better and set an example for us all. I hear the promises, the whispered pacts to cut down together. They're still they're next week.
There's a bimodal distribution there, you can tell seniority both by how quick, hurried and clandestine their puffs are, all flash and smoke blown into dark corners, and then the blatant ones, the big shots without who the hospital would grind to a halt of PGs, Associate Consultants and RMOs left rudderless when the buck stops with them. They challenge each cig and any mildly curious passersby. Fuck you, even cancer thinks twice about taking me on, at least on the hospital premises.
And then the phones ring, cigarettes burn out, the last dregs of chai and coffee are downed. Paper cups laden with ashes find more corners to marinate in, and stubs are crushed by shoes beneath scrubs and we all go our merry ways. If there's hell to pay, at least we can afford it.
Great comment. How does the ban work in practice? Still simple enough to acquire for those interested?
Well, you can order them online and have it show up at your doorstep, without being ripped off the few times I've tried! The legal system has bigger fish to fry, this just adds a level of friction that stops it being remotely common, especially since the ban was handed down when the practise was barely taking off.
The ban is on sales; possession and use are legal, so if you manage to get some, there's no further barriers in play.
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I see med students smoking regularly off campus grounds, and if there is ever any remonstration from the hospital it takes the form of photographs of unsightly cigarette butts thrown in the sidewalk--a problem because it upsets the neighborhood nearby, presumably, for social harmony is the real moral law here. Appearances, face, tatemae.
I never get it when I see doctors smoking. I feel the same quasi-revulsion as when I read about married pastors fucking their parishioners, cops stealing, or college administrators privileging star athletes and sports over academic programs. The little glimpses of entropy and chaos. Yes, I'm a naive idealist.
That said, it was a nice read. We all contain multitudes.
I used to be extremely militant about not smoking and avoiding those who did, but I softened up my stance when I realized that with advances in modern medicine, a fresh smoker is unlikely to die of lung cancer. I hold this to be true even leaving aside AGI timelines, cancer treatments are improving and fast. Still not the best idea, because they make you feel like shit when you're not smoking them, leaving aside other health issues, but I don't go about handing out pamphlets.
As for vapes, me and my girl did a literature review prior to our first purchase, and the evidence demonstrating any health risks is thin to outright nonexistent, I'd say they have like <1% the risk or harm of cigarettes, if you care to quantify. At that point I don't really lose sleep over it.
I suppose I have fewer hopes in modern medicine than you, particularly as regards the health risks of smoking (or vaping). You may or may not be right about the prospects of lung cancer for any given smoker, but obviously routine smoking is a predictor of all manner of other cancers, as well as COPD and various other non-respiratory ailments.
I am not telling you anything you do not already know.
I would probably still smoke when drinking, as I did for years, just for the social aspect, but I seem to have developed what is probably chronic bronchitis (though I have not been diagnosed) and the last time I had a cigarette with a smoker friend of mine I was coughing for days afterward. Not fun.
Don't take this as my being preachy, though it's true I tend toward being that gadfly presence in people's lives. As I suggested earlier, we all have our faults, and I certainly have mine--nagging being one of them. Doctors in Japan are notorious for actively avoiding telling people to stop smoking or drinking, or even suggesting this as a possibility, though they will regularly shake their heads at eating so-called "western food." Once a doctor's prescribed remedy for my son's digestive issues was: "Eat Japanese food" (和食を食べなさい). The vagueness of this was not surprising, but it still ground my gears.
We're on the same page here, I didn't take you coming across as preachy, I just wanted to clarify why I felt I could vape without worrying about it coming back to bite me. While hypocrisy isn't the worst sin, I avoid it when I can!
Given the lifestyles of Japanese salarymen, I suspect half of them would either die or kill themselves if you take away their few remaining pleasures in life haha
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