Smoking and example

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32776, 29 November 1971, Page 14

Smoking and example

Sir,—l was surprised and shocked to see on television recently Sir Keith Holyoake smoking a cigarette while talking to a party of school children in the House of Representatives. For the Prime Minister of New Zealand to set such an example before a group at this receptive age is, in my opinion, deplorable. What attitude Sir Keith Holyoake or any other adult takes on the subject of the risks of cigarette smoking is for the individual to decide. My point in writing this letter is to stress the inadvisability of setting such an example before the young. My purpose is entirely non-political, as I would write it whatever the political affiliations of the offender.—Yours, etc., LIONEL CORDERY. November 27, 1971.

Sir,—As a former smoker 1 am well aware of how little one considers the rights of the non-smoker. Yet they are as real as any, particularly when it is recognised that one’s health can be affected adversely by other people’s smoking. The trouble lies mainly in the social attitudes towards smoking which have been dextrously contrived by the advertiser. Somehow the smoker is pictured as a superior person; the men more significant and insouciant, the women more feminine and irresistible than the luckless hypochondriacs who care to be considerate, both to themselves and others. Fortunately, similar ploys could and should be used to indicate to the young that withit jokers don’t dig smoke, s; that smoking is only an unpleasant habit which induces neither popularity nor material success. Herein lies the tremendous responsibility of parents, teachers and those in public positions of any kind. —Yours, etc., JANET R. HOLM. November 27, 1971.