The end of the last century saw the birth of two Germans who will be famous for eternity: Adolf Hitler, the bloodthirsty dictator, and Albert Einstein, the peace-loving genius scientist. Both men held strong views on the subject of smoking, and it is worth examining their opinions as we approach the end of the current century. This is especially true because there are proposals in Congress to ban smoking in the workplace, to raise tobacco taxes by astronomical percentages and to have the federal government regulate tobacco as a drug.
Hitler was a zealot about many things, so it is not surprising to discover that he was an extremist on the subject of smoking. He was a militant anti-smoker. He regarded smoking as vile and disgusting. According to Time magazine, "Adolf Hitler was a fanatical opponent of tobacco." He was fond of proclaiming that women of the Third Reich did not smoke at all, even though many of them did. Richard Klein, in his fascinating book Cigarettes Are Sublime, wrote that Hitler was "a fanatically superstitious hater of tobacco smoke."
Einstein, on the other hand, was very passionate about his pipe smoking. During one lecture, he ran out of pipe tobacco and borrowed some cigarettes from his students so he could crumple the tobacco into his pipe. "Gentlemen," he said, "I believe we've made a great discovery!" But later, he decided that his conclusion was premature. He learned firsthand that cigarette tobacco is quite different from pipe tobacco. It lacks the aroma, the fullness and the taste of pipe tobacco. However, what appealed most to the great scientist was the entire ritual -- carefully choosing from a variety of pipes and tobaccos, delicately loading the briar, puffing and tamping, and the associated contemplation. He said pipe smoking helped him relax and gain perspective. "I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs," he said in 1950 at age 71 when he became a lifetime member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club.
I offer this contrast between Hitler the militant anti-smoker and Einstein the moderate pipe smoker for two reasons: first, to encourage the crusading anti-smokers in America to chill out; and second, to encourage cigarette smokers to take up moderate pipe smoking of one to three bowls a day as a relaxing and healthier alternative.
The current political pressure to ban all smoking from the workplace, even from designated smoking areas, is symptomatic of an attitude in our society that is distressing to those of us who value freedom. This attitude degenerates into a movement to prohibit for everyone what some of us don't like. If you're in a minority and the majority wants to pass a law against you, God help you. The majority will do it. Even a few scientists will attempt to prove whatever it is they want to prove, regardless of the evidence. A good example is the fact that many scientists have questioned the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusions about secondhand smoke. Going back to our Hitler/Einstein comparison, it is easy to see that fanatical intolerance, as opposed to moderation and consideration, are at the heart of the smoking debate in America today.
I am speaking out as a private citizen because I am a successful entrepreneur who is responsible for sending millions of tax dollars to the state and federal governments each year -- from my own taxes, from my company, from our shareholders, from our employees, from our clients and from our vendors. It is frustrating beyond belief to know that my tax money finances politicians seeking to pass laws banning me from smoking a pipe in my own office. (Incidentally, I have a large private office with a powerful air purifier, and I keep the doors closed.)
California Rep. Henry Waxman is proposing what he calls the "Smoke-Free Environment Act," which would prohibit smoking from any public facility. By "public facility," he means not just government buildings but any building that is entered by 10 or more people at least one day per week (except residences, this time). But what if the building is privately owned and its owner wants to smoke? Too bad. His private building will be classified as a "public facility." Labor Secretary Robert Reich has threatened to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to support a ban on smoking in the workplace.
Besides seeking to ban smoking in "public" buildings, the Clinton health plan proposes raising the tax on some cigars by more than 3,000 percent and the tax on pipe tobacco by nearly 2,000 percent. The Clinton plan also wants to raise the tax on chewing tobacco by more than 10,000 (!) percent. Talk about targeting the poor. The militant anti-smokers should read history. King James I of England hated smoking as much as Henry Waxman and raised tobacco taxes by 4,000 percent. King James was wholly unsuccessful and, of course, created a huge black market for tobacco. Fortunately, 400 years after his death, England is known for some of the finest pipes in the world, including Ashton, Dunhill, Charatan, Comoy and Upshall, just to name a few.
The latest assault on all forms of tobacco comes from Dr. David Kessler, head of the Food and Drug Administration, who wants to regulate nicotine as a drug. The fact that nicotine gum requires a prescription is ridiculous. It is another example of making life more difficult for the poor. Anna Quindlen of The New York Times recently praised Kessler and used the words "courageous" and "brave" to describe those members of Congress who were eager to suspend the First Amendment by restricting tobacco advertising. I'd suggest that Kessler and Quindlen read John Barleycorn by Jack London, in which London confessed that he was a hopeless alcoholic. He wrote that he favored women's suffrage because he was convinced that the women would pass Prohibition and thus he would be forced by government decree to stop drinking. Well, the country did pass Prohibition. Whether it was because of women's suffrage or not, I don't know. But Jack London stopped drinking because he killed himself, not because of government decree. And Carry Nation, the woman who led the fight for the prohibition of all alcohol, was mentally ill. It's too bad she never knew the joys of pipe smoking.
The anti-smoking movement has been gaining momentum for decades, but it is only in the last year or so that it has really become Gestapo-like in its enforcement. I believe I know why. The reason is cigarettes, plain and simple. Cigarette smokers are reluctant to speak out. It is extremely difficult to be a moderate cigarette smoker, and heavy (i.e., normal) cigarette smokers are clearly at risk of suffering heart attacks, lung cancer or emphysema. We all have friends and relatives who have suffered from lifetimes of cigarette smoking. Most cigarette smokers want to quit and thus feel no enthusiasm in defending their habit.
Despite these health hazards, however, all attempts to prohibit cigarette smoking represent a dangerous threat to freedom. Alcohol also carries considerable health risks, but attempts to prohibit it ultimately backfired by provoking Mafia wars and turning ordinary citizens into criminals.
While I am not advocating cigarette smoking, I am advocating freedom. In fact, my hope is that if you smoke cigarettes, you will consider switching to a pipe. The difference between chain-smoking cigarettes and moderate pipe smoking is the difference between drinking a case of beer or a bottle of vodka a day vs. having a glass of wine with lunch or dinner.
There is an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence that pipe smoking offers psychological benefits, yet these are never considered in the debate. Ask any pipe smoker about the joy of his hobby! It is incredibly relaxing. It is fun. It is pleasurable. It tastes good. It feels good. It helps us unwind. It helps us cope with stress. It enhances objectivity. It facilitates contemplation.
All of these psychological factors contribute positively to good physical health, but when are they mentioned in the discussions led by Waxman, Kessler and Reich? Never.
They don't want to know about such intangible issues as enjoyment, relaxation, fun, pleasure or reward. The starting point of their thinking is the simple question: Is this activity good for you or not in a strict biological sense? If it is not good for you, or if we think it is bad for you, then we will attempt to outlaw it. But if that is the starting point of their thinking, then the end result logically would be to outlaw obesity, to demand exercise from all Americans, to prohibit junk food, to limit alcohol and caffeine consumption, and so on and so forth. The irony is that Waxman is, frankly, a little chubby, Kessler used to be fat (and nothing is so unhealthy as yo-yo dieting), and Reich hardly looks like the picture of health.
Compare these three with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is as healthy as a horse and a dedicated cigar and occasional pipe smoker. I work out regularly myself. I have even trained with Arnold. You could say that I am something of a health nut. I eat a healthy diet. I don't drink alcohol. I go for a five-mile run at least once a week as part of my exercise program that includes a minimum of four hours of strenuous workouts each week. And despite my moderate pipe smoking, or perhaps because of the endless joy it gives me, I am in terrific physical condition. In fact, I have been featured in three different articles in fitness magazines and one book as a businessman who is the picture of health, so to speak.
Yet I'm put on the defensive and treated as a pariah because I enjoy a pipe. We can only hope that laws won't be passed that will make all smokers common criminals. If our prisons are overcrowded now, can you imagine what they would be like in the future if smoking were made illegal?
It is also frightening that our tax money is used to sponsor government propaganda messages against smoking -- official hate speech from the state. Anti-smoking billboards and other advertisements by the government (especially by the state of California) are aimed at encouraging the average citizen to loath smoking and, by implication, smokers. Which minority group will be targeted next for persecution? Asian women? Men with blond hair? Jews? Christians? Libertarians? Immigrants? People with suntans? Your guess is as good as mine.
Here's one illustration of how absurd the hysteria against smokers really can be. Several days ago, I was standing on a street corner in Santa Monica waiting for the light to turn green. A mass transit city bus, with an anti-smoking propaganda message on the side, passed and spewed out soot, pollution and filthy exhaust fumes. I crossed the street and entered the Tinder Box, which was founded when Calvin Coolidge was president. The aroma was magnificent! I chatted with the store's founder, Ed Kolpin, who has come to work every day since 1928. He was puffing on his pipe, looking very contented. How many other people in this country founded stores in the 1920s and still come to work every day? Ed attributes his good health and long life to the sense of peace that 65 years of relaxed and intelligent pipe smoking have given him.
I'm sure the same would be true if we had questioned Albert Einstein or Albert Schweitzer or Friedrich Hayek or Arthur Conan Doyle or Carl Sandburg or Mark Twain or Gerald Ford or Jack Lemmon or Bing Crosby or Aaron Spelling or Roone Arledge or Walter Cronkite or Norman Rockwell or millions of other pipe smokers who achieved greatness in their lifetimes and who lived, or are still living, to an old age.
I read a story in a 1950s-era pipe magazine about Guizot, the historian of France. A lady visited Guizot one evening in his home and found him absorbed in his pipe. She exclaimed, "What! You smoke, and yet have arrived at so great an age?" "Ah, madame," the venerable statesman said in reply, "if I had not smoked, I should have been dead 10 years ago."
Pipe smoking is a hobby I began in 1978, and it has given me endless hours of enjoyment. At that time, at the age of 28, I was a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker. I could not run a mile without collapsing from wheezing, and many nights, my hacking cough woke me up. There was no way for me to be a moderate cigarette smoker. I decided that cigarettes were poison for me, but I still wanted to smoke, so I tried smoking a pipe as a substitute.
At first, I suffered tongue bite; I broke one pipe not knowing how to handle it; I was not used to smoking without inhaling; I smoked way too fast and burned the briar on several pipes -- and made a dozen other mistakes typical of the beginning pipe smoker. But that's what makes pipe smoking so unique. It is a ritual that requires patience and study.
You can't just go to a drugstore, buy the least expensive pipe you can find, and expect to enjoy the smoke. It doesn't work that way. It can require years of study and practice before one's enjoyment of a pipe reaches that point of contentment that only professional pipe smokers know.
Let me put it this way: I was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Georgetown University, I studied for a master's degree at the University of Chicago, and I make my living in the field of intellectual property rights, representing writers and artists in newspaper syndication. But when it comes to pipes, I'm strictly a beginning student. Christopher Morley wrote in 1916 that "pipe smoking is properly an intellectual exercise." I have read 17 books on the subject and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of magazine and newsletter articles, and I still learn something new every time I visit a knowledgeable tobacconist. I believe the best overview on the subject is provided in The Ultimate Pipe Book by Richard Carleton Hacker -- a fact-filled text written in an interesting and fun style.
Pipe collecting as a hobby has become such a passion for me that I own nearly 200 pipes, some dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, and I know the history of nearly all of them and the biography of the pipe carver. There may be only a few pipe smokers left, but we are intelligent and dedicated.
If smoking has any future at all, it lies in moderate pipe smoking. I realize that excessive pipe and cigar smoking can contribute to various forms of mouth, throat or lip cancer in rare instances, but it is the excess that is the culprit. It is relatively easy, with time and practice, to be a moderate pipe smoker. However, if you cannot smoke a pipe or cigar without chain-smoking, then I would strongly recommend giving them up altogether.
There was an interesting longevity study conducted in Pennsylvania during the 1960s and early 1970s. According to the magazine The Compleat Smoker, an organization called No Other World conducted the research with the assistance of regional chapters of the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and the Northwestern Pennsylvania Lung Association. "In the study, pipe smokers attained an average age of 78 -- two years older than their non-smoking male counterparts." In other words, the typical pipe smoker in the study lived longer than the typical non-smoker. I believe this says a great deal about secondhand smoke -- that its dangers are grossly exaggerated. It also says a great deal about the benefits of pipe smoking to reduce stress.
But data showing that pipe smokers statistically outlive non-smokers drives anti-smokers crazy because it contradicts everything they believe about all types of tobacco use. How do they explain it? For the most part, they don't. They simply lump all smokers together and condemn smoking. Period. End of story. Some militant anti-smokers appear to be motivated by morality as much as medicine. Whenever I hear a moderate pipe smoker criticized, I know we are dealing with sin, not science.
Nonetheless, pipe smoking in America today is a lost art. The New York Times recently referred to pipe smokers as "oddballs," even though James Reston, one of the most influential writers and editors at the Times for decades, has been a dedicated pipe smoker for most of his life.
The Times made the comment in a story about the growth of the cigar market and the sudden success of Cigar Aficionado magazine, which is a very interesting publication with beautiful graphics. The pipe book author Richard Carleton Hacker also wrote the best-selling Ultimate Cigar Book, and he says that cigar sales have soared more than 45 percent during each of the last few years, especially premium cigars. Millions of executives, professionals and young people are discovering the pleasures of cigar smoking.
They are clearly rebelling against the Puritanism of the hard-core anti-smokers. The barrage of moralistic pronouncements, combined with a legislative stampede that is flirting with Prohibition, have encouraged many non-smokers and former cigarette smokers to take up cigars. It is a phenomenon that says a great deal about individualism and rebellion. It is also a statement of freedom to enjoy oneself because, to a real cigar smoker, there are few pleasures in life that can compare with a fine cigar.
Black-tie smoker dinners are always sold out well in advance. Successful pipe shops are packed with more customers buying cigars than pipes. Certainly many famous people have lived long lives as cigar smokers. Some were never photographed without their cigars, including Winston Churchill and Groucho Marx.
Among contemporaries, there seems to be a growing number of high-profile celebrities and business leaders who relish their cigars in public, including David Letterman, Rush Limbaugh, Madonna, Lee Iacocca and Bill Cosby. George Burns and Milton Berle have continued to enjoy fine cigars for years and years and still more years -- in fact, for a combined total approaching two centuries! One of my favorite businessmen, the insurance billionaire and full-time positive thinker W. Clement Stone, has been smoking cigars for most of his 90-plus years.
Regardless of legislation, smoking will not go away. It just won't. It's been around for hundreds of years. All types of governments have tried banning it altogether, and people just keep puffing away. Nearly a billion people from around the world smoke cigarettes daily. The Los Angeles Times recently observed: "Russia once whipped smokers, Turkey beheaded them and India slit their noses. The Massachusetts colony outlawed public smoking in the 1630s, and Connecticut required smokers to have permits in the 1940s. At various times between 1893 and 1921, cigarette sales were banned in North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Utah, Kansas and Minnesota."
My frustration is that pipe smokers get lost in the argument because there are so few of us. And as I said, cigarette smokers generally have no enthusiasm in defending their habit, while pipe smokers have a real passion for their pipes. Cigarette smokers want to quit. Pipe smokers are eager to learn more about their hobby. Cigarette smokers in America today are often made to feel shame and guilt while pipe smokers feel contentment and peace of mind.
So the solution is to encourage cigarette smokers to switch to a pipe. That includes women, of course. Objectively, there is absolutely no reason why women should not smoke pipes, too.
Once you start discovering the various types of briar, and the thousands of blends of exquisite tobaccos from all over the world, and the hundreds of traditional and unusual shapes, sizes and finishes for a pipe, and the possibilities for beautiful artwork carved into meerschaum and briar pipes -- a whole new world of enjoyment and independence will open up to you. It is a world that will help you relax and reduce your stress level. It is also a statement of ultimate rebellion against political correctness. To be a pipe smoker in America in 1994, you really must be an individualist.
Don't forget -- there is a direct link between freedom and the right to smoke. Cornell Professor Richard Klein has researched this issue extensively: "Like other tyrants such as Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Hitler, James I despised smoking and demonized tobacco. The relation between tyranny and the repression of the right to grow, sell, use, or smoke tobacco can be seen most clearly in the way movements of liberation, revolutions both political and cultural, have always placed those rights at the center of their political demands. The history of the struggle against tyrants has been frequently inseparable from that of the struggle on behalf of the freedom to smoke, and at no time was this more the case than during the French and American revolutions."
Make moderation a priority in your pipe smoking, and you can enjoy your hobby for many decades. You will enhance your good health and go through your days with a happy, relaxed and level-headed perspective. As the noted author and intellectual John Erskine wrote more than a half century ago, "To this day we writers rely on the pipe for patience, for good humor, and for an objective view of the universe."
That is precisely the conclusion Albert Einstein drew from his own pipe smoking. It is worth reminding those anti-smokers who are moralistic to the point of being insufferable that their most famous historical leader in this century was none other than Adolf Hitler. At the least, that will dampen their self-righteousness. It is also worth noting the advice of the greatest scientist -- yes, scientist -- of the 20th century: If you want to be calm and objective in all human affairs, then by all means, become a moderate pipe smoker.
DRAWING BY JULIA SUITS OF HITLER LECTURING EINSTEIN (REASON MAGAZINE 1994)
