I was nine years old when the Surgeon General's report on smoking appeared in 1964. When I was 14 I tried smoking cigarettes for about two weeks, and then "quit," in quotes because I probably never smoked enough to become addicted. When I found out that Barack Obama smoked cigarettes I was surprised; he seemed so squeaky clean, well spoken, and... intelligent. How could he be a smoker? It is unnerving to discover ones own prejudice, in this case about smokers, and so here I examine my present attitude in hopes of understanding why Obama's smoking bothers me, and whether it should.
I don't think smoking is a moral issue. I believe it is a health issue. Nicotine is a powerfully addictive substance, and is available at every corner market. It is thoroughly embedded in our popular culture; just watch any movie aimed at a mature audience from the last 80 years or so. When I was in college, I hung out with people who smoked; in some jobs I found the most intelligent and irreverent characters were the ones going outside to have a smoke, and I joined them. I wasn't going to let somebody's need for a cigarette interrupt an interesting conversation. I really shouldn't be surprised to find out somebody smokes.
It has been a long time since that first report and the explicit labeling of cigarettes. Now I realize I have developed an attitude that goes like this: There are many people my age (51) and older who have quit smoking, and many still struggle with it; I feel sorry for those who developed the habit when it was socially acceptable and haven't been able to kick it. I do not hold their smoking habit against them. Then there are those who are young, say college aged. I think they are foolish if they smoke, but youth has always been foolish, and hopefully they out grow it.
What about those in between? Those who have known all their lives that smoking was unhealthy and there was a price to pay eventually, and it would be cancer or emphysema. Ones who still haven't given it up, even though they have matured, pursued careers, started families and done so many other challenging things in life and now, like Obama, are in their forties. Doesn't this say something about their character? I think this is what bothered me about Obama's smoking, and now on reflection, I was wrong to let it bother me. It is a health issue for the senator, as it is for anyone who smokes, just as weight or cholesterol might be for anyone regardless of the office they hold. What he believes, and what he can do, is what matters. I don't think his being a smoker is helpful (I saw it spun as "humanizing"), or hurtful; it is just irrelevant.