| Smoking a tobacco pipe and smoking a cigarette are two very different things.
That’s something that one quickly learns at a Calgary tobacconist’s biweekly pipe-club meetings. Every second Wednesday, a group of about 20 pipe smokers meet at Cavendish & Moore’s to smoke different blends of tobacco, drink Scotch and simply converse with each other.
The air is thick with smoke and conversation. The topics are many and varied: work, philosophy, film, history and, of course, pipe smoking.
"People come in, and they all have something in common," says manager Joshua Patterson. "Someone who’s just graduated from high school will sit beside an architect, and they’ll have something to talk about."
Many think of old men in tweed suits when they think of pipe smoking. But the group gathered here is quite eclectic, almost bizarrely so. There are a few older men that fit the stereotype, but there’s also a police officer, an electrician and several students, among others.
Almost everyone gathered here agrees on one thing: they are not "smokers" in the cheap, du Maurier sense of the word. Pipe smoking is something altogether different than cigarette smoking, they say, and it doesn’t do to lump the two into the same category.
Smoking a pipe is a deliberate process. Many describe it as an art; Patterson calls it a craft. One has to pack the tobacco into the bowl just right, and lighting the pipe and keeping it lit is no easy task. It takes practice and skill.
But the law doesn’t make a distinction between pipes and cigarettes. Smoking is smoking in legal terms, and so pipe tobacco is taxed to death just like cigarettes. And while smoking will be banned city-wide in 2008, many establishments have already put a ban in place against pipes and cigars.
Bring these issues up here and you’re likely to hear a few rants about the anti-smoking lobby.
"It’s the typical hysteria," says Dave Rhodes, a pipe smoker who also makes and sells pipes. "It’s much ado about nothing."
As the smoking ban looms on Calgary’s horizon, there are concerns that a meaningful tradition will be snuffed out. To many, the tobacco pipe is nothing more than a quaint relic of ages past. But to others, the pipe carries a lot of meaning, both personally and culturally.
One pipe club member, Mike Glover, started smoking a pipe after his father died. His father was an avid pipe smoker, and Glover started smoking his father’s pipe as a way to remember him. His case is not unique. In fact, many pipes become heirlooms of sorts, passed down from generation to generation.
The tobacco pipe also has cultural significance. Patterson refers to a group of British intellectuals that met in the 1940s to smoke and discuss philosophy and theology on a regular basis. Authors J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were a part of that group.
"Tolkien and his friends would come together to drink pints and smoke," he explains. "They would talk about whatever they were writing. A lot of good ideas came from those times when they were sitting around smoking their pipes." (It’s no coincidence that the diminutive hero of Tolkien’s classic The Hobbit enjoys a good pipe.)
While some places in Calgary have already banned pipe smoking, others have no problem with it. Lynn Porteous has owned the Kensington Pub for more than 11 years, and says she can’t remember ever having someone complain about pipe smoke.
"It’s usually quite a pleasant smell," Porteous says. "We have no plans to ban pipes and cigars until they tell us we have to."
Of course, there are the health concerns. But pipe smokers generally aren’t too concerned with the oft-talked-about harmful effects of smoking. Most pipe smokers don’t inhale, and many challenge the idea that their habit – certainly not an addiction for most people – is killing them.
There is an unverifiable statistic that is often passed around pipe-smoking circles like Cavendish & Moore’s pipe club. In its most basic form (there are variations), it goes something like this: pipe smokers live an average of two years longer than non-smokers. The elongated life is commonly attributed to the laidback and reflective nature of most pipe smokers.
"You can’t just grab a smoke and run with a pipe," says Glover. He says he used to smoke cigarettes, and sees a pipe as completely different.
"It’s distinct from any other form of tobacco consumption," agrees Patterson. "It’s a much more contemplative practice."
Most pipe smokers only smoke once or twice a day, if that. It’s impossible to say whether pipe smokers do actually live longer, mainly because there have been so few studies done that differentiate between pipes and cigarettes. But there is one study that many pipe smokers know and commonly refer to.
In 1964, the United States Surgeon General issued a report on smoking that found "death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than for non-smokers."
The same report found that the death rate for cigarette smokers is 70 per cent higher than for non-smokers.
Is pipe smoke neutral from a health point of view? Should it be permitted in Calgary even after a ban on cigarette-smoking in public places? Should pipe tobacco be exempt from astronomical taxes? It all depends on who you ask. But it’s probably safe to say that at Cavendish & Moore’s pipe club, those that appreciate the craft of pipe smoking will keep their briars hot and the smoke rings blowing until they are forced to do otherwise. |
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