Cigarette smoking is a nasty, dirty habit.
It not only dirtys our environment, it pollutes our bodies and
is the cause of several potential lethal body disorders.
No matter, we are stuck with smokers, in fact we are
surrounded by them.
They smoke every conceivable type of pipe, cigar, and cigarette.
The cigarettes, regular, 100's, king size, mentholated,
unmentholated, and in all variety of flavors, with excessive
nicotine and almost without nicotine and the accompanying tars.
Until a very few years ago I thought that all cigarettes were
universally available, dependant only on the size of the
dealer and the space available to stock the various brands,
sizes and flavors.
One day, a few years ago, my wife, who was still smoking at
that time, decided to try to cut down her smoking habit and,
she decided to do it at first by smoking only those cigarettes
with the lowest nicotine and tar content.
At first, because she had several regular weekly medical
appointments in the more affluent sections of town, she began
buying her supply of cigarettes there and, since she has always
had the habit of replenishing supplys before they were depleted,
she continued to purchase her cigarettes in that part of town.
Inevitably, one day her supply ran low and she asked me to
purchase a carton of her then favorite brand of cigarettes
while I was out.
I searched for hours in our (black) community, in drugstores, in
convenience stores and, in stores that specialized in the sale
of tobacco goods but I could not find her brand or any other
brand of very low nicotine and tar (2% or less) brands.
In fact, most of the stores I queried said that they had never
heard of those kinds of cigarettes.
Finally, in desperation, I drove west tot he affluent (white)
section of town where I discovered that low nicotine and tar
cigarettes were quite common and available in most stores in
that area.
It was at that point that the light came on.
I became aware that this was probably one more "subtle"
attempt at genocide.
Many people of color are aware of the many things that are
marketed in our community that are inimicable to our health
and well-being, but few of us are aware of the many things
that are witheld from our community because they may help
solve one or more of our problems.
Still, they tell us that things are getting better.
What do you think?