When Second-Hand Smoke Becomes First-Hand Smoke
Rumit Pancholi
June 30, 2005
Where can you commonly find a flock of people ogling packs of cigarettes with half its carton glaringly labeled “Smoking Kills” in big, bold print? Not in the US, at least. Somewhere in South America? Maybe. But it is in Greece, a country of impressive white beaches, gorgeous marble temples evoking gods and goddesses of myths from yesteryear, and cobbled, narrow city streets contrasting the peninsula’s heartland of sensational olive trees and the mouth-watering taste of gyros and souvlaki, skewered meat served piping-hot in skewers, where, according to the European Union, or the EU, over 45 percent—the highest in the Union—Greeks smoke.
On a recent visit to Attica and the Peloponnese in Greece on a study abroad program through the University of Maryland, I experienced — however unfortunately — firsthand this overwhelming trend that is, at least from an outsider’s perspective, a bandwagon requiring nearly little or no propaganda. The trend of cigarette-smoking: a domino effect; a monkey-see-monkey-do; a permanent chain. In any case, an eternal cycle to which an entire population, whether children or the elderly, fall prey. The “Smoking Kills” warning—if it could even be called a warning—spanned across half a store targeting consumers of Ouzo and Miller Light alike and both the much-loved Papastratos and well-known Marlboro cigarette cartons as soon as I had disembarked at Athens’ E. Venizelos Airport.
Smoking is permitted nearly anywhere in Greece, and even where it isn’t allowed, rarely – if at all – does it seem to be enforced. The hotel was the first place my group of ten travelers (including me and a classics professor) encountered the nauseating smell that would become a part of daily life (shudder) for us touristy Americans. No matter what time of the day – even before the earliest street vendors roll out their wood carts stacked with loukoumades, or Greek donuts, at the crack of dawn or at 11 p.m., around the time when most Greeks eat dinner. As the saying goes, “there’s a time and place for everything,” For smoking, though, that time is all the time and that place is every place.
The hotel attendants’ relentless smoking is not as galling—after all how often do you drop off or pick up your room key (and thus leave or enter the hotel) anyway? A few seconds’ worth of smoke inhalation never killed anybody…yet!—as being confined to a seven-hour boat ride with almost nine out of ten Greeks lighting up one after another. A nice boat otherwise, but clouds of smoke filled up the entire area with unbearable pollution. At least, I thought, I could just trickle outside and catch a (rather cold) whiff of soothing fresh air.
But when it came time to grab a meal, it was nearly impossible to go to a restaurant anywhere in Greece – whether in a small island or a big city – without having to deal with second-hand smoke. At one restaurant in Mykonos, it was so overwhelming to me I jokingly called it “first-hand smoke.” Indeed, it was the biggest experience of “culture shock.”
In the two-and-a-half weeks we stayed in Greece, the internet café, the hotspot for travelers, was where smoking was most unbearable. The uncomfortably cold setting was one thing. Greek and American pop music blaring overhead was another. But what was the worst part was the smokers so closely confined in a small room where the smoke had no ventilation except through my nostrils. Typing with one hand and squeezing shut my nose with the other not only made me look ridiculous, but also made typing an unsurprising challenge. The funniest part wasn’t me looking silly, but the fact that every few computers were supplied with ashtrays when “No Smoking” signs were plastered all over the orange walls. Hence, the earlier statement on a the “No Smoking” policy not being enforced.
Walking down Syntagama Sqaure to get to the Metro Station, I could see a ton of idling police officers watching – and letting – smokers toss cigarette butts to the collection of others strewn across the ground. Big deal, huh? Not really, when it comes to a street because I understand the littering policy (if it exists) is different. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of bitterness when we reached one of our first archaeological sites, the Aeropogus—a giant, jutting boulder just beneath the entrance to the Acropolis where in classical times criminal trials were conducted—and I witnessed the entire rock nearly entirely blanketed with cigarette butts. Public smoking is virtually universally legal, but when it comes to an ancient site, the act of greatly smoking angers me.
So what does this all add up to? Two weeks of lung cancer training? Not exactly – though the entire study abroad experience would have been significantly better without the smoking, the only thing to do about it was to “suck it up” and accept it as a part of Greek culture. Americans should really be thankful that they have options to select a “non-smoking’ section where there actually isn’t any smoke lurking to attack. After all, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.
On a recent visit to Attica and the Peloponnese in Greece on a study abroad program through the University of Maryland, I experienced — however unfortunately — firsthand this overwhelming trend that is, at least from an outsider’s perspective, a bandwagon requiring nearly little or no propaganda. The trend of cigarette-smoking: a domino effect; a monkey-see-monkey-do; a permanent chain. In any case, an eternal cycle to which an entire population, whether children or the elderly, fall prey. The “Smoking Kills” warning—if it could even be called a warning—spanned across half a store targeting consumers of Ouzo and Miller Light alike and both the much-loved Papastratos and well-known Marlboro cigarette cartons as soon as I had disembarked at Athens’ E. Venizelos Airport.
Smoking is permitted nearly anywhere in Greece, and even where it isn’t allowed, rarely – if at all – does it seem to be enforced. The hotel was the first place my group of ten travelers (including me and a classics professor) encountered the nauseating smell that would become a part of daily life (shudder) for us touristy Americans. No matter what time of the day – even before the earliest street vendors roll out their wood carts stacked with loukoumades, or Greek donuts, at the crack of dawn or at 11 p.m., around the time when most Greeks eat dinner. As the saying goes, “there’s a time and place for everything,” For smoking, though, that time is all the time and that place is every place.
The hotel attendants’ relentless smoking is not as galling—after all how often do you drop off or pick up your room key (and thus leave or enter the hotel) anyway? A few seconds’ worth of smoke inhalation never killed anybody…yet!—as being confined to a seven-hour boat ride with almost nine out of ten Greeks lighting up one after another. A nice boat otherwise, but clouds of smoke filled up the entire area with unbearable pollution. At least, I thought, I could just trickle outside and catch a (rather cold) whiff of soothing fresh air.
But when it came time to grab a meal, it was nearly impossible to go to a restaurant anywhere in Greece – whether in a small island or a big city – without having to deal with second-hand smoke. At one restaurant in Mykonos, it was so overwhelming to me I jokingly called it “first-hand smoke.” Indeed, it was the biggest experience of “culture shock.”
In the two-and-a-half weeks we stayed in Greece, the internet café, the hotspot for travelers, was where smoking was most unbearable. The uncomfortably cold setting was one thing. Greek and American pop music blaring overhead was another. But what was the worst part was the smokers so closely confined in a small room where the smoke had no ventilation except through my nostrils. Typing with one hand and squeezing shut my nose with the other not only made me look ridiculous, but also made typing an unsurprising challenge. The funniest part wasn’t me looking silly, but the fact that every few computers were supplied with ashtrays when “No Smoking” signs were plastered all over the orange walls. Hence, the earlier statement on a the “No Smoking” policy not being enforced.
Walking down Syntagama Sqaure to get to the Metro Station, I could see a ton of idling police officers watching – and letting – smokers toss cigarette butts to the collection of others strewn across the ground. Big deal, huh? Not really, when it comes to a street because I understand the littering policy (if it exists) is different. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of bitterness when we reached one of our first archaeological sites, the Aeropogus—a giant, jutting boulder just beneath the entrance to the Acropolis where in classical times criminal trials were conducted—and I witnessed the entire rock nearly entirely blanketed with cigarette butts. Public smoking is virtually universally legal, but when it comes to an ancient site, the act of greatly smoking angers me.
So what does this all add up to? Two weeks of lung cancer training? Not exactly – though the entire study abroad experience would have been significantly better without the smoking, the only thing to do about it was to “suck it up” and accept it as a part of Greek culture. Americans should really be thankful that they have options to select a “non-smoking’ section where there actually isn’t any smoke lurking to attack. After all, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.
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