What Allen Carr calls “the brainwashing”, all the forces of our societies that contributed or still contribute to a rather positive image of smoking, seems to include among its sources together with tobacco companies’ adverts, a surprisingly wide alliance, from governments to great authors. Who doesn’t remember, for example, the start of Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, the students’ meetings and discussions in the middle of thick clouds of smoke?
The more you smoke the more health you need to have in order to sacrifice it to smoking. Thus it was natural for smoking to be gradually identified with health, even more with youth. Since smoking kills slowly, it is usual to seem disgusting not so much when youngsters smoke, but when old people, already full of dirt and poisons, continue to light one cigarette after another.
