It was World No Tobacco Day yesterday, an annual event organised by the World Health Organisation. But don't feel too bad if you didn't notice.
In a popular newspaper phrase, albeit one more often used to describe public protests and Orange parades, the event passed off without major incident. As promotions go, it was a "no smoke" campaign without fire. Certainly, there was no slump in sales at Fox's cigar shop in Grafton Street, Dublin, a city landmark for 120 years. But at least a spokesman there was conscious of the day's significance. "We would always be aware of something like that," he said, warily. If there was any public awareness, however, it was not affecting business. Pipe sales have declined in recent years, he admitted, "but cigars are, if anything, growing in popularity".
At up to €40 for a Cuban Cohiba, the cigar has obviously become another metaphor for Irish economic success. Less explicably, the sales of snuff are also holding up. "It's very good at clearing your head if you have a cold," the spokesman claimed. The most notable event of No Tobacco Day in Ireland was the formal establishment of the Office of Tobacco Control, in Clane, Co Kildare. fMr Martin called it "another milestone in our battle against the worldwide tobacco epidemic". But the office has been operating administratively for the past two years and its main contribution to the WHO event was to issue 8,000 posters to sports administration bodies, for use "in the background" to anti-smoking events.
The hope that publicity would be passively inhaled also featured in the day's biggest international promotion, which saw the no-smoking hoardings placed strategically at the corners of the ground on which Senegal beat France in the opening game of the World Cup.
The whole tournament has been declared tobacco-free. But Senegal did not do the advertising campaign any favours, failing to win a corner during the entire match.
