Have you ever lit up? An entire generation will in the United Kingdom in the future only ask that behind closed doors. Those who used to hide cigarette packs under the bed know the strategies of circumventing bans. In the United Kingdom they will henceforth be put to the test: A new law prohibits the procurement of any tobacco products for all those born from 2009 onward – for life.
H Have you ever lit a cigarette? An entire generation will in the United Kingdom in the future only ask that behind closed doors. Those who used to hide cigarette packs under the bed know the strategies of circumventing bans. In the United Kingdom they will henceforth be put to the test: A new law prohibits the procurement of any tobacco products for all those born from 2009 onward – for life.
A wise decision, even if accusations of age discrimination linger. People view the ban with mixed feelings, much as at the start of the year at the part of the circle of friends who observed Dry January sober, and the rest then uncorked a bottle of sparkling wine. While Gen Z drinks less anyway, cigarettes are at least in Germany among young people en vogue – despite the substantial harm to health and the environment. Do we also need a ban on the controversial yet glamorous ritual of simply lighting up a cigarette?
Smoking is as old as humanity itself. What began as a ceremonial practice around the fires of hunters and gatherers became, for the European cultural elite in the 16th century, a status symbol: wooden pipes smoked between the teeth of noble gentlemen. Just as smoking was reserved for the wealthy, for a long time it was also considered the domain of the masculine.
Even well into the 20th century, smoking men were associated with intellect and authority; recall Helmut Schmidt, who made cigarettes something of a trademark. At the same time, women who smoked were considered mysterious and seductive. The cigarette belonged to the pose of film icons such as Audrey Hepburn or Marlene Dietrich: the longer and thinner it was, the more erotic it appeared.
Spirit of Emancipation
Once derided as the “hooker’s stem,” the silver-blue and lilac packs with slim cigarettes increasingly glitter from the handbags of young women in present-day Berlin. As a homage to the elegance and audacity of smoking predecessors and as an appropriation of the male gaze. For in youth culture, the cigarette, alongside toxic substances, still carries the spirit of emancipation.
In an era when beige-clad “Clean Girls” on social media explain how they prepare their matcha before seven in the morning, lighting a cigarette may feel provocative again today. Objectively, this is of course bad, and a law like the one in Great Britain is a consistent measure. Wouldn’t the perpetual lure of the forbidden be a factor here?
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