by Vincent Boccarossa
Ihave a distinct memory from my infant days of being passed around the living room by loving parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and so on in a smoke-filled atmosphere. By the time my brother was born three years later both of my parents had quit smoking, although on some level it may have left an inedible imprint on me. It wasn’t until my college days that I took up tobacco as part of my daily life, although marijuana had been a part of my life since I was twelve years old. Funny how marijuana is now considered medicinal in many states, while tobacco smoking is systematically being banned across the country and in parts of the world… On planes, in the workplace, in restaurants, bars, and pubs, in hotel rooms, and even in select parks and beaches. Smoking tobacco has become the deadly nemesis for a “healthy society” and for those of us who disagree, well, we can either quit the “nasty habit” or stay cloistered in our homes and vehicles smoking to our heart’s content; and that too might be challenged by the die-hard anti-smoking advocates.
A smoke-free America, a smoke-free England and Ireland, a smoke-free world that keeps people sick and vaccinated supporting the profits of the medical-chemical complex right to their grave. Forget about the horrors of GMO’s and Monsanto destroying the soil with their pesticides and chemical fertilizers, or the contamination of nearly all our water systems with the ocean as another garbage dump, or the spraying of metals into the air in defense of global warming, or how our civil liberties are being systematically dismantled, or the plethora of various issues and problems that exist within our society. The bottom line reflects how a Zionist/Fascist/Marxist state has cleverly “used” the anti-smoking crusade and other social movements to gradually erode our basic freedoms to choose, to live independently, and to always remember that “they” know what is best for the rest of us.
My family emigrated from Italy during the mid-1930s as Mussolini battled communism and gradually his nationalistic stance became a fascist military force uniting with Nazi Germany and the empire of Japan. My great-great-grandfather, Alfonso, eventually came to the U.S. as well, smoking a pipe until he died in his eighties; my Dad gave me the pocketknife that he used to clean his pipe and pack his tobacco with. My great-grandfather, Mario, did not smoke, although he worked in one of the Ford plants for nearly forty years, which was its own health risk; he died at a younger age than his own tobacco-smoking father. I was in fifth grade and vividly remember his funeral with over two hundred cars in the procession; he was loved and respected by many people.
His son, Rinaldo Nazarene, my grandfather, began smoking as a teenager; there is a famous picture of him at fourteen with a friend coming to the U.S. on a ship posing in their mafia-like suits and hats, and of course, with cigarettes in hand smoking freely. My grandfather, however, after “sowing his oats” with a few years of womanizing and gambling, divorced from my grandmother after having four children, my father and three sisters. He remarried my step-grandmother Lois, who had three children; they had one child together, my Aunt Rhonda. Grandpa Ronnie smoked on average four packs of cigarettes per day most of his life and died of emphysema, the smoker’s dis-ease; although one day he told me that the problem with the world was sex, not smoking tobacco. Maybe there were other factors involved with his debilitating dis-ease than just smoking, but no one wanted to go there because it brought up angers, resentments, guilt trips and other emotional triggers from the past. My grandfather was seventy-two when he died, maybe not the longest life span, but not the shortest either.
Both my father and my younger brother are named Mario after my great-grandfather; my father smoked until he was about thirty, then quit because it was the “right thing to do.” My brother never smoked; he likes alcohol and fine food. He works as a CPA for a worldwide auto parts corporation; he plays golf and some hockey on the side. My brother is married with one daughter, Ava Maria Boccarossa; in many respects, he is living the “American dream” with all the fixings, like a holiday meal that he now enjoys hosting for the family. Until the fear of covid-19 put a damper on social gatherings even within one’s own families over the holidays mandating that people stay cloistered in their respective homes.
I took the “road less traveled” and found myself on a spiritual quest, dreaming the impossible dream, at least from Midwestern standards anyhow. I traveled across the country and eventually landed in southern California in December of 1990. I made many journeys back and forth across the states exploring the country and keeping a bridge open to family and friends in Michigan and elsewhere; gradually, my trips became less frequent and my letters eventually stopped, since no one was writing me back. I immersed myself in writing screenplays, painting work and construction jobs, participating in sundance ceremonies (six times with Harley Swiftdeer and the Deer Tribe), healing ceremonies, and over 160 sweatlodge ceremonies. Swiftdeer smoked non-filter clove and tobacco cigarettes one after another; which I gradually began to smoke in my mid-twenties, despite the comments about how “bad they were for me.” At twenty-six I met my mentor-like spiritual friend, VCJ, another clove and tobacco smoker, and that was it; I had turned the corner for good. I began to learn about the medicinal value of tobacco and clove, and the old soul that I am had found a home among like-minded individuals in pursuit of truth, on behalf of love, open to fair counsel, enjoying the tobacco-clove combination, and sharing an occasional marijuana joint between us.
I remember one day sitting with VCJ as he smoked and repeated several times, “This is bad for me. This is bad for me.” Then he would pause dramatically and say, “Did you get it yet?” He did this numerous times to make his point. If you curse your food, then you eat your curses. If you think tobacco is bad for you, then don’t smoke it. But for those of us who use tobacco as part of our medicine, then have enough respect to leave our liberties intact, thank you very much.
As the crusade for a non-smoking state, country, even the entire world continues at an alarming rate, fanatically led by relentless do-gooders who believe they are creating a healthier society, well, my response to them is simple… Give it up, let it go, and allow people their own choices and their own vices. Of course, the non-smokers deserve their space too, and should be allowed smoke-free areas to enjoy; however, don’t smokers deserve a space as well or did I miss something in the debate. But there really hasn’t been a debate because “people who know what is best for the rest of us” are promoting the non-smoking crusade among other new world order agendas.
I remember a friend sending me a news clip about the “oldest person in the world” living in Indonesia and a heavy tobacco-clove smoker his entire life finally crossing over at 146 years old. In an article published on May 1st, 2017, “Mbah Ghoto told the BBC last year that patience was the key and that he had a long life because I have people that love me looking after me.” They didn’t stick him into an “old folks home” and take away his smoking privileges; his grandchildren obviously loved him for who and what he was as he outlived four wives, ten siblings and all of his children. His longevity was not registered “official” because Indonesia began birth records in 1900; Ghoto claims to have been born in 1870 with valid papers to prove it. Let’s be real, in today’s “reformist culture” there is no way they would allow the oldest human in “modern” times to be a lifelong tobacco-clove smoker.
BBC Article, 1 May 2017: “Oldest human’ dies in Indonesia ‘aged 146”: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39768321
In Theodore J. King’s book The War On Smokers and the Rise of the Nanny State he states his intention clearly in the preface…
“I do not advocate smoking, which it is well known can be harmful to one’s health. Instead, in this book I decry the Nazi-like attitudes and laws that make criminals out of smokers, a Nanny State that tells its citizens what they can and cannot do. These attitudes and laws amount to totalitarianism and must be analyzed, considered, and modified.”
– from Theodore J. King’s book “The War On Smokers and the Rise of the Nanny State”
He wrote that preface in 2008 and it appears Mr. King was offering prophetic words as we observe people wearing masks and social distancing, and don’t even think about smoking in public, God forbid. For some of us, both smokers and non-smokers alike, to relinquish our freedom of choice and basic liberties in order to feel “protected and safe” is a costly and damaging trade-off. Now with the push toward mandatory vaccinations, the global deep state cabal has crossed the line causing people to rise above their differences and unite against such draconian measures.
For centuries tobacco and other plants have been smoked in cultures around the world; however, tobacco and marijuana have also been demonized and frowned upon similar to alcohol consumption. We all know what happened with Prohibition and how that turned out, yet for three decades the crusade against smoking and smokers has been a non-stop campaign. It did not help that “big tobacco” companies were putting unhealthy and unnecessary additives into their own products bringing major lawsuits upon them and furthering the crusade for a smoke-free society. Instead of cigarette commercials that now have been banned from the public airwaves, a slew of ads began showing up relating smoking to cancer and other dis-eases. After over a century of industrialization contaminating our air and water sources like never before in history, including over a thousand nuclear tests on American soil, the public was told that tobacco is the primary culprit for a host of medical maladies. Is it possible that tobacco was used as a convenient scapegoat to cover up other contaminants and pollutants saturating our personal lives and our public domains? I can already hear the litany of voices yelling, “Tobacco is still bad for you!”
On June 22nd, 2009 President O’Bama signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate the tobacco industry. The law included bans on flavored cigarettes including the popular “kreteks” or clove-tobacco blend that was imported from Indonesia encroaching on the United States’ huge tobacco market. There was a special exemption written into the law for menthol cigarettes that caused the law to be nicknamed the Marlboro Monopoly Act of 2009. Sounds like the tobacco industry and the crusaders against smoking shared a common interest to get this law passed and signed by a President who smoked himself.
In this age of globalization anyone can order almost anything they desire from around the world. I can even get marijuana at a local dispensary in several states, yet it is nearly impossible to find the original Djarum Special clove cigarettes in the 20-pack anywhere on the planet. So let me get this straight, now I can order my marijuana seeds and buds freely, but I am not allowed to buy a clove cigarette that many people enjoyed for over five decades. Something is wrong with that picture, but thanks to “O’Bummer,” the “Nanny State” and Big Tobacco we can kiss our favorite blend goodbye for good and make due with a 12-pack cigar clove cigarette sold at the same price if not higher since the tax increase here in California was implemented on tobacco products.
One courageous doctor who crossed over in 2015 of natural causes at a ripe old age was Dr. William Campbell Douglas. He was labeled a “quack” by many of his contemporaries battling the medical-chemical complex with his experience and perspectives. He wrote several books including The Health Benefits of Tobacco: A Smoker’s Paradox; as a lifelong cigar smoker, Dr. Douglas walked his own talk and was vilified for it by the mainstream medical establishment. When one-third of all “centenarians” are clove-tobacco smokers, then maybe there is a medicinal value in this centuries-old practice. Remember the entertainer George Burns often seen with a fat cigar in his mouth; he lived to one hundred years old eventually crossing over of natural causes.
At fifty-four years old if I make it into my eighties that would be a full life in itself; if I am blessed with more healthy years, then that is in the “higher hands” of my Oversoul and God. I do not fear old age and death, for I began to make them my “allies” many years ago and continue to walk as gracefully as I can with these “emotional fears” that plague most people to some degree. I am inspired daily to fulfill my purpose in this lifetime, to fully embrace this mission, and to live my remaining years awake, aware, alert and with full spiritual sobriety. And I will continue to enjoy the conscious use of tobacco and clove as well as smoking cannabis and using it in balms, creams and tinctures for the rest of my life. Put that in your pipe and smoke it honoring the sovereignty of the individual soul; pack it and smoke it with love and respect for God or the Great Spirit or the Tao or whatever name one prefers to use.
As Swiftdeer used to tell people, “Make your life a ceremony.” I remember taking that to heart and it has served me well throughout my life. In gratitude for Swiftdeer’s life path and his many giveaways, I smoke in honor of his memory and for the prosperity of the Deer Tribe, the organization that continues his legacy of knowledge and teachings, the wheels, keys and ceremonies of the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path. He crossed over on September 10th, 2013 and he loved to smoke his non-filter clove tobacco cigarettes until he closed his book of life.
I can visualize a “Smoking Awareness Campaign” that champions the conscious use of tobacco as a powerful medicinal plant, similar to marijuana but for much different purposes. However, the young soul culture that acts like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other will rally against such a movement. It cannot help itself and is easily manipulated by global deep state cabal operatives that infiltrate their various organizations and control the mass media channels and outlets. Jacob Sullum’s book For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health explores the issue with a fair and honest approach backed up with extensive research.
In the author’s note at the beginning he states clearly…
“Following the money will always be easier than following a line of reasoning or examining a body of data, but this approach is completely antithetical to rational discourse. If (real or imagined) personal motives invalidate evidence and argument, then none of us has anything worthwhile to say, because we all have personal motives. I state mine plainly in the introduction: I oppose paternalistic policies on philosophical grounds. Activists, scientists, and bureaucrats may be driven by ideology; by a reluctance to admit error; by a hunger for power, publicity, or funding; or simply by a desire to reduce smoking and thereby improve “the public health.” If we have independent reasons to believe that someone is shading the truth, these agendas can help explain why. But the motives themselves do not discredit the conclusions.”
– from Jacob Sullum’s book “For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health”
And then the author ends the book with a profound statement followed by an appendix debunking ten anti-smoking myths…
“Of all the risk factors for disease and injury, it seems that freedom is the most pernicious. And you thought it was smoking.”
– from Jacob Sullum’s book “For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health”
I imagine that some people may choose to dismiss me after reading this essay, but there will be a few smokers out there who enjoy the conscious use of tobacco and will cheer this essay on. Regardless if you choose to smoke or not to smoke, our cherished liberties and freedoms are worth more than the “safety measures” and “draconian mandates” of a new world order and their Zionist/Fascist/Marxist state. As Benjamin Franklin has written and is often quoted for stating that,
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
~Benjamin Franklin
