Smoker's Island

Smoker's Island

When smoking restrictions increasingly came into force across the world in
the early 21st century a number of disgruntled smokers and smoke fetishists
got together to form groups on the Internet.  At one point the people in
these groups started discussing the possibility of purchasing an island where
they could make their own laws and be free from smoking restrictions.

The group moderators therefore decided to set up a splinter group called "The
Smokers' Island", which people could join for a subscription of £10 a month
plus the option of making extra contributions to the fund to be reimbursed
once the island was set up.  All proceeds went into an account with a view to
purchasing a remote tropical island where smoking restrictions would be kept
to an absolute minimum.  People would be allowed to smoke absolutely anywhere
and "no smoking" areas would be almost nonexistent.  Almost, that is, because
there would of course be situations where it was absolutely necessary to
restrict smoking, such as in the presence of flammable materials. 

There would be no restrictions on cigarette advertising, plus cigarette
packets and cigarette adverts would carry no health warnings.  On the other
hand, adverts about the bad side of smoking and adverts encouraging people to
give up smoking would be forbidden.  This also meant that anti-smoking
websites or indeed any websites which portrayed the negative health effects
of smoking would be censored.  Of course, pro-smoking sites were allowed,
particularly smoke fetish sites.

Also, there would be no limit on the amount of tar and nicotine in the
island's cigarettes.  This excited many members who sorely missed the ultra
strong cigarettes that they had enjoyed so much before they were outlawed.

Membership was far greater than the moderators had expected.  The idea of
escaping to a smokers' paradise appealed to a lot of people, heavy smokers
and smoke fetishists alike, and money came rolling in.  The members came from
all walks of life with many different skills and most had children with whom
they wanted to share the pleasures of smoking but were afraid of being deemed
bad parents if they actively encouraged their offspring to smoke.

The vast majority of the island's fertile land was to be devoted to growing
tobacco and since tobacco would not be taxed this meant that it would be
cheaper on Smokers' Island than anywhere else in the world.  Furthermore,
there would be no age restrictions on the purchase of tobacco, cigarettes, or
other smoking material.  Buying and smoking tobacco was to be legal at any
age because smoking was considered a right and not a privilege, so it would
be perfectly legal and acceptable for minors to buy and smoke tobacco
products.  

As membership grew, money continued to pour into the group's fund and the
members started to discuss how the island would be run and began to agree on
laws.  All relevant issues were regularly discussed in the group's chat room
and consensus was quickly reached by all the members.  What they found most
appealing was the idea of cigarettes being plentiful and extremely cheap. 

One major issue was how the island's schools would be run.  Soon it was
agreed that it would be completely normal for teachers and children alike to
smoke in school classrooms.  Furthermore, there were to be no PE lessons,
partly because the island's smoking children would likely get out of breath
quickly if they were made to do any physical exercise.  The majority of
islanders disliked all kinds of physical exercise, apart from sex, and
furthermore there were no PE teachers in the group.  This was expected
because almost all PE teachers elsewhere in the world were anti-smokers.

There was to be no school uniforms and schoolchildren would dress however
they wanted.  This, of course, meant that both boys and girls would be free
to dress topless if they wanted to indicate that they were open to sexual
relations, although they had to wear at least a shirt and shorts in classes.

As the group continued to expand, the world's tobacco consortium got involved
and expressed an interest in setting up business on Smokers' Island, not
least because the majority of their employees were smokers.  They suggested
building the island's entire economy around tobacco production and selling it
to the rest of the world at a knock down price.  The group promptly agreed
the tobacco companies would invest in their project.  What for many people
had been a mere fantasy was now set to become reality.

An evolutionary biologist in the group pointed out that traits that are a
liability from the point of view of survival and reproductive success will be
selected for if they improve one's chances of attracting a mate.  Given that
the males of island's population would be mainly smoke fetishists and that
most of the females would be heavy smokers, this meant that island evolution
would select for females with a tendency to smoke heavily and males with a
preference for women who smoke a lot.

He also pointed out that if children smoke heavily from a young age they will
reach sexual maturity younger than normal because their bodies would sense
that their reproductive organs were being damaged and that they needed to
pass their genes on sooner than usual.  It would also be necessary for the
islanders to be sexually promiscuous so that evolution could find the right
combinations of genes that confer resistance to poisonous cigarette smoke.

He also pointed out that the next generation would be predominantly female.
Not only were heavy smoking parents more likely to conceive girls than boys,
but female embryos were more likely than male embryos to survive being
exposed to high levels of toxins in utero as a result of their mothers
smoking heavily throughout their pregnancies.  This excited many of the
group's young male members who anticipated the island's girls becoming
sexually active at a young age.

Most of the group's members had lost their virginity at a young age and along
with many of their schoolchildren had started smoking young specifically to
indicate that they were open to sexual relations.  It was soon agreed that
consensual sex would be legal at any age and that it would be accepted as
normal for schoolgirls to get pregnant and have children.  In fact, children
were to be encouraged to become sexually active at a young age in order to
keep the population going.  While contraceptives would be allowed on the
island, their use was to be discouraged.

There were plenty of qualified child carers in the group, most of who had
given up that line of work after being banned from smoking when they had
children in their care.  The island would therefore have plenty of nurseries
staffed by qualified childminders so that the island's parents could carry on
working or studying without having to worry about their offspring.

Men with the smoke fetish and heavy smoking women alike wanted the island to
be much more liberal towards drugs, sex and nudity as well as towards
smoking.  None of the group's members cared about the negative health effects
of smoking and similarly most of them weren't particularly bothered about the
risks of contracting STDs from unprotected sex.  

The island was to have a wild party scene for all ages where recreational
drugs that were illegal in most parts of the world would be readily available
and also quality controlled.  Nudity was to be allowed on all the island's
beaches along with many other locations.

There were plenty of pro-smoking doctors and nurses in the group.  It was
agreed that hospital staff would have to wear uniforms for hygiene reasons
and that it would, unfortunately, be necessary to restrict smoking in some
parts of the island's hospital.  Still, smoking restrictions would be kept to
an absolute minimum.  Doctors, nurses, teachers, and other professionals were
to be freely allowed to indulge in consensual sexual relations with people in
their care. 

The group decided against building a prison on the island and that the
punishment for any serious crime was for the offender to be exiled from the
island and serve their sentence in their country of origin where they were
unlikely to be allowed to smoke.  After all, the island's laws were to be
extremely liberal and any crime punishable by exile, including non-consensual
sex, i.e., rape, was punishable by death or imprisonment in most other parts
of the world.  

But there was one thing that was legal everywhere else in the world but was
to be punishable by exile from Smokers' Island: being an anti-smoker.  But
anti-smokers were unwelcome from the start and no anti-smoker would even
consider joining the group, so no-one thought this would be a problem.  

Most of the islanders' children wanted to start smoking because they'd seen
how much their parents enjoyed it, even though they'd also seen a lot of
negative publicity on the health effects of tobacco smoking.  The parents all
wanted their children to smoke but were worried about being deemed unfit if
they got their offspring to start smoking young.  They were frustrated by the
fact that their children wanted to smoke but that if they let them, social
services were likely to take them into care where they would never be allowed
to smoke.  This made them extremely excited at the prospect of their children
being able to smoke as much as they wanted whenever they wanted and no-one
thinking badly of them as a result.

After the rules were all agreed on, the members then discussed making the
purchase and all the necessary arrangements.  Each member was given a bank
account with funds proportional to the amount of money that they had donated
to the group, after deductions for the cost of purchasing the island,
building its infrastructure and entertainment complexes, and chartering the
world's only airline that permitted smoking aboard its aircraft.

As everyone settled on the island their smoking habits naturally increased.
Being able to smoke all day long without any restrictions meant that many of
them quickly became chain smokers.  It was not uncommon for people to smoke
more than six packs in one day.

Furthermore, the island's children started smoking at increasingly young
ages.  Most of the parents had always smoked around their children, who had
come to associate tobacco smoke with love and security.  They had seen how
much their parents loved smoking and had been told that when they wanted to
smoke themselves they could have as many cigarettes as they could smoke.

Most of the island's adult pregnant women suffered miscarriages or
stillbirths as they chain smoked throughout their pregnancies and the
successful few who delivered full term babies chain smoked to relax while
they were in labour.  The few babies that survived their mother chain smoking
while pregnant were born with a major nicotine addiction so the mother and
midwife would both blow smoke into the newborn's face to satisfy its craving.  

The newborn babies naturally liked having nicotine filled smoke blown in
their faces and when they got older they naturally became curious about the
people smoking around them.  They'd reach for their cigarettes, at which
point their parents would carefully insert a cig into his or her mouth and
let their baby puff on it.  So the island's children were now smokers from
birth and all of the island's offspring were natural born smokers.

Children were allowed to smoke on their own as soon as they were capable of
handling a lighter and lit cigarette without burning themselves or starting a
fire.  Since all the parents educated their children about this, almost all
of the island's children started smoking when they were just toddlers.  It
soon became normal for even pre-school children to be regular smokers and
many were smoking more than two packs a day before their 4th birthday.  The
island's child carers had all become chain smokers and they gladly shared
their cigarettes with their protégé at the island's smoke filled nurseries.

But there was one downside to the island's culture.  People started dropping
like flies from smoking related illnesses.  Hospital beds were full of
patients with lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema, but doctors, nurses
and other medical staff were not allowed to tell their patients that they
needed to give up smoking or even to cut down, even if their lives depended
on it.  After all, they were heavy smokers themselves.

Later, the island's population actually became dependent on smoking
cigarettes.  Their bodies evolved to require nutrients that could only be
obtained from tobacco smoke.  And they needed to smoke at least 60 cigarettes
a day in order to obtain sufficient nutrition.