Daniel ThwaitesA REPORT in the Wednesday Gleaner said that smugglers are importing tobacco illegally and selling it to other businessmen. One problem seems to be that these importers are avoiding the taxes they should pay on imported tobacco. Without question, the RPD should nab and nail them for that. But as usual in Jamaica, there is that added twist that makes life here so delightful.
The paper reports that "to add insult to injury, the businessmen have been submitting claims to the Government for rebates on GCT they claim to have paid to the smugglers".
Don't you just love that? There were other nice features in the tobacco story. For example, another complaint is that the illegally imported cigarette packets fail to disclose how much tar and nicotine the cigarettes contain, and that is against the law because apparently people need to know how much tar and nicotine they are getting out of every ciggy.
Cigarettes are an interesting obsession. People tend to have extreme reactions to them, either loving or hating them. Morris Cargill used to create some wonderful column inches defending his habit and bemoaning the inevitable increases that would be attached to cigarettes come budget-time.
Tobacco is interesting, because even apart from its eventful history, it poses an awesome metaphysical problem: why is it that so many enjoyable things are bad for you? This is a terrible mystery. Smoke, wine and women are fun, and therefore men want them in abundance. Yet the very abundance becomes burdensome and harmful.
Maybe it is our propensity to abuse things which taken in limited quantities wouldn't be so destructive.
Native Americans used it for ceremonial purposes. As we all know, the Europeans stole North America, picked up the tobacco habit with the acquisition, and then passed the habit along to all the other places and persons that they stole along the way. Pre-rolled cigarettes gained popularity during this century and they have significantly increased the amount of tobacco that an average user ingests. Opulence and riches have their cost. Just like the uniform potency and easy availability of brewed alcohol has made dinner more pleasurable, but has increased and deepened alcoholic pathologies.
Like alcohol, at one time tobacco was outlawed in some jurisdictions. Massachusetts, soon followed by Connecticut, outlawed the taking of tobacco by two or more persons together in the early 17th century. I don't know why tobacco taken by "two or more persons" is more dangerous than tobacco taken by an individual, but that just goes to show that governments sometimes pass stupid laws. Like Jamaica's ganja laws.
Smoking marijuana, like tobacco, is clearly not good for one's health. But should it attract criminal penalties? I think not, and wish our government would quit shadow-boxing and simply remove that offensive law from the books. King James I of England believed tobacco to be a great evil and so he levied some heavy taxes on it. That's the approach we should take to ganja. The budget could do with the help.
Most people have known that just as it probably isn't a good idea to stand over a wood-fire and inhale, it is probably not a good idea to ingest the smoke of tobacco leaves. Still, in the 1960s American lawmakers began demanding that warning labels be placed on cigarette packets to protect people from themselves. But did anyone need a label on the packet to tell them that inhaling smoke isn't good for their health? Please.
Interestingly, the first CIA plot against Fidel Castro was to 'season' his cigars so that when he smoked them his beard would fall out or they would disorient him. On both versions of the plan, he would look idiotic and ridiculous and so his stature among his people would nose-dive. The plan didn't work, so the CIA quickly turned to poison pills and other exotic means, like sending his lovers to shoot him. All quite exciting, and all made possible because Fidel used to move around everywhere chewing on a massive tobacco leaf.
Since then Castro has given up the cigars. Life is like that, even for Fidel. The fun things tend to work against us.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
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