Myth Busting
There are a lot of myths about smoking out there. These myths can make you think that smoking is just another harmless activity that the fun-police want to stop you enjoying. Rather than showing you boring facts and figures about how bad smoking is, we got the Kiwi celebs featured on this website to tell you firsthand what their experiences of smoking have taught them about the myths out there.
Myths
THERE ARE MORE SMOKERS THAN NON-SMOKERS IN NZ
LANI PURKIS: The percentage of people who smoke is definitely smaller than the people who don't smoke. Now I'm one of the only ones who doesn't smoke. I've found that when you're on the other side, you realise how few people do smoke.
SIMON HUGHES: The fact that they're banning smoking indoors shows that people are definitely against smoking. It is not the normal thing. It is not the majority. It is the minority of people who are smoking in New Zealand anyway. Picking up the cigarette is going to make you the minority.
KARA RICKARD: A lot of the younger kids who I know these days don’t really smoke.
LANI PURKIS: I don't think that smoking is as normal as it used to be. It's very abnormal to be a smoker.
MYTH: BEING A NON-SMOKER IS KINDA UNCOOL
SHAVAUGHN RUAKERE: I would never feel pressure from anyone smoking. I don’t think it’s cool at all.
KARA RICKARD: Being a non-smoker, you don’t have to feel really segregated outside in the dirty smoker’s corner.
SAMUEL FLYNN SCOTT: I think it’s completely socially acceptable to be a non-smoker. I think it’s a norm and if anything it’s the opposite for smokers who have to go and stand outside every forty-five minutes. There is no such thing as the 'cool smoker’s scene'.
PENNY NEWTON: I think it’s more acceptable these days to be a non-smoker than it is a smoker.
PAUL ROPER: It’s totally acceptable to be a non-smoker.
KIMBERLEY CROSSMAN: I think it’s perfectly fine to be smoke free. I don’t think you’re judged in any way.
JERMAINE LEEF: I think a lot of people in the industry are smokefree and it’s definitely, in my opinion, it’s cooler not smoking.
TE AWANUI REEDER: All the top celebs that I know don’t smoke.Typically their skin’s a lot nicer and they don’t wear makeup, they’re always in the crowd because they’re not having to go out and have a smoke, they’re always in the scene.
ANGELO MUNRO: It’s totally OK not to smoke. The perception that you’ve got to smoke or you’re uncool only exists with teenagers. I think older people do respect if you’re not smoking.
SIMON HUGHES: I definitely didn't feel like an outsider for not being a smoker.
LANI PURKIS: It's much cooler to not smoke.
BRAD CARTER: If I had any advice to give, it would be that you don't need to smoke to be accepted. If you can get to a point in your life where you can stand upon your own individuality, really be yourself and not care what anyone else thinks about you then that is one of the coolest places you can ever get to in your life. GP WARU: Smoking is not something you have to do to grow up. If anything, you show your maturity by not smoking.
MYTH: NO-ONE DARES TO SAYS IT, BUT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT SMOKING IS PRETTY COOL
HELEN CROWN: It’s like at every opportunity I’m outside smoking. I hate that. I’d rather be one of those people who was more chilled and calm and just sit back and let the crew do their thing until it was my time to do it. It would be a lot cooler.
SIMON HUGHES: From my experience, most of the people who were picking up a cigarette wanted attention and you could tell that was their way of getting attention. It ended up backfiring on them because it wasn’t considered a cool thing to do and I remember a lot of people looked at them and realised this and they were kind of more of an outsider with the smoke.
PHIL BOSTWICK: When I see people who are in that completely addicted state I know that it looks stupid, they look stupid and I wonder what went wrong in their head to make them think that every ten minutes they need to go outside and have a ciggie.
GP WARU: I had a great run-in with a New Zealand band, a very cool band, and I was back stage with them, enjoying the privilege of hanging out in the green room and I lit up a cigarette. They politely asked me to put it out. You’ve never seen a Maori go red like that. I was so embarrassed that I was so uncool with this rock and roll group that that was another one of the big reasons I quit.
VAUGHAN SMITH: When I see a young person smoking, or even a person my age smoking all I think is, 'at some stage you were too weak to say no to peer pressure.' To me it doesn't say 'cool' or 'I'm looking rad, I've got a smoke in my mouth', it says you were too weak to say no.
MYTH: SMOKING CAN LOOK SEXY
SAMUEL FLYNN SCOTT: If you’re wanting to start smoking because you think it’s cool, take that money that you’re spending on cigarettes and spend it on some good clothes because it’s going to do a hell of a lot more with the ladies.
PAUL ROPER: The most annoying thing for me is girls who smoke. You don’t want to pash her because she tastes like smoke. It’s gross.
LEE DONOGHUE: I choose not to smoke because I don’t want to limit myself in life or professionally and it’s a turn-off to the opposite sex too. I don’t go after women that smoke, that’s a big no no.
JERMAINE LEEF: It completely turns me off seeing someone smoke a cigarette.
PHIL BOSTWICK: The worst thing is probably the smell and the taste of it. If you have a friend who has smoked, a girlfriend for example, and you haven’t smoked and you go to kiss her it’s really not the romantic experience that you’re really looking for and that’s happened before.
SAMUEL FLYNN SCOTT: I thought that maybe smoking was a way to meet girls or something but that didn’t end up being true at all and it just seemed like quite a bizarre behaviour.
BEN MITCHELL: Women pay attention to smell, the way you hold your hair, and you can tell a smoker because their body becomes so acidic, their body starts to atrophie, their muscles, their gums start to erode, and they haven’t even got to the smell yet because that’s up close, but you can tell in their skin, their cells, you know? It's decrepit
TIM PHIN: Girls that sing and smoke are definitely not sexy.
BEN MITCHELL: Lung cancer, I mean cancer of everything really, rotting of the gums, the mouth, all those decrepit things that make your mouth odorous and just so unattractive.
GP WARU: Nobody likes to kiss a smoker. Let's be honest guys, we all like our ladies. Ladies don't like to kiss hangi lips, and is there any other reason? Ladies and life. Don't smoke.
MYTH: SMOKING IS THE SOCIAL THING TO DO
HELEN CROWN: The way that I tend to run away from it all is I’ll go and have a cigarette because I’ll tell you now it’s the most anti-social thing you can do.
VAUGHAN SMITH: Some people take up smoking because they think it will be social. Now that you aren't allowed smoking inside it's the very thing that will cost you your social life.
GP WARU: No, I don't think smoking is normal behaviour. I think less and less so in today's social networks. I think people today really feel like outsiders if they smoke, and they are outsiders cos they have to go outside.
SIMON HUGHES: A lot of places you go you see the smokers huddled out in the corners smoking their cigarettes. And let's be honest, no one wants to speak to someone who's blowing smoke in their face all the time. I think that smoking is more of an anti-social thing to do as opposed to a social thing to do with friends.
VAUGHAN SMITH: You have to go away from where the action is. Among my group of friends, I think that we've only ever had one friend that has been a smoker. It just became the fact that he'd have to go outside and sit in the cold, or go outside and stand amongst a whole group of people he didn't know. He wasn't very socially active so it cut down the amount he was smoking drastically.
PHIL BOSTWICK: As far as the cons [of smoking] go it’s a health thing, it’s a social thing as far as people around you think it’s disgusting, it smells really bad, and it just doesn’t look as cool as people think.
TIM PHIN: Also people who smoke are now segregated from people who don’t smoke so for that reason there’s a stigma attached to it. They have to go outside into a dark corner and smoke, away from the fun and good times. It’s cooler to be smokefree now.
MYTH: IF YOU QUIT SMOKING, YOU’LL FIND IT HARD TO SOCIALISE WITHOUT YOUR SMOKING CRUTCH TO LEAN ONM
DAVE GIBSON: The funny thing is nobody’s even noticed the difference in my behaviour. My life is still the same, I still go to the same places, I still go to the same café, I still sit in roughly the same seats, although I can sit inside now if it’s cold, I still go to the same bars, I still do the same things, still talk to the same people, you know? Yeah, the acceptance of being a non-smoker is sweet, I think people don’t really notice it.
TIM PHIN: Ex-smokers are respected by smokers because they’ve done the hard yards.
PHIL BOSTWICK: Sometimes you get into this frame of mind [at parties] where you think in order to have a really good conversation with someone or to hang out with certain people you have to smoke, but just because they’re smoking doesn’t mean you have to as well. You can be with them, you can hang out with them, you can laugh with them, you can do whatever with them, the same as them, and not smoke. That’s fine.
DAVE GIBSON: Now that I quit smoking I’m at ease when I go out, I can be social, I can have a beer. I was at the last Silver Scrolls and I ended up in a conversation with Adam, who’s the head of our work label, and I actually had a massive talk to him for about an hour but that would never have happened before because I would’ve only had ten minutes before needing a cigarette.
MYTH: THAT SMOKING SHOWS THAT YOU’RE FREE TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICES IN LIFE
HELEN CROWN: Then I remember there came a point in time when I felt like I had to have a cigarette just before the gig and then before I knew it, in between the sets I was having cigarettes, straight after the gig I was having cigarettes and I suddenly realised that I’d shifted into like the next stage of being an addict. That was pretty scary. It was a scary reality to go, 'oh, I’m no longer choosing this thing, it’s choosing me.'
DAVE GIBSON: It’s not about being a rebel because rebels have freedom to do what they want and be free from the establishment and from rules, and when I need to smoke I’m just not free at all. I’m trapped … I can only go to certain cafés that I know have got a smoking section, I spend the whole time in a bar unhappy because I’m either outside smoking and going ‘I wish I was inside having a drink’ or I’m inside having a drink and thinking ‘I wish I was outside smoking.’ I’m conflicted the whole time.
GP WARU: All those people we used to look up to as being the rebels of rock and roll because they smoked or did drugs or whatever, these are the guys with their hands up higher than anyone saying, 'Don't do it. Don't follow the same path because we've got forty years experience. You're only into it ten years and you're already feeling the effects. Imagine how you'll feel at my age? Cut it out and you'll live a lot longer and enjoy your music a lot longer.'
DAVE GIBSON: The funny thing, or the irony about all of this is the freedom I feel from quitting as opposed to what I assumed would be a lacking or a wanting feeling from not smoking.
MYTH: SMOKING RELIEVES STRESS
PENNY NEWTON: I think it is the idea that smoking would give me confidence and I got that idea from watching other people in the entertainment industry who were all chain-smokers. You’d see movies and you’d see the newsreaders and the smoking and that’s fully ingrained into the media and it has been for a very long time. Even if it wasn’t a direct message, it was definitely subliminal that cigarettes relieve stress and I think I bought into that idea. Therefore I made it my reality.
BEN MITCHELL: That’s the absurdity of it all, thinking that they’re going to relieve the stress by having a smoke but they’re actually causing so much stress in life because it’s a time waster. By going away for ten minutes, or going out and having a five minute ciggie, it’s actually causing stress in their bodies and the stress of going out there, coming back, going out there every ten to fifteen minutes, that’s thing. GP WARU: It doesn't taste good, it doesn't relax you, it does nothing beneficial and everything bad.
KARA RICKARD: When I did smoke before shows it used to make me feel stressed out more, because it would speed up my heartbeat and I’d smell yuck and then I’d get upset. I’d be like, 'you know you didn’t want to have that smoke and it was gross so why did you do it in the first place?'
HELEN CROWN: I don’t know what the scientific chemical stuff is but I guess it slows down your ability to absorb oxygen or something. It makes me late for things because I have to squeeze in a cigarette before I do something, which makes me stressed out, which always makes it harder to gig.
GP WARU: Tobacco industries make us think that tobacco relieves stress but you know what? You get along without smoking. People who don't smoke have stress free lives too. Everyone has stress. Everyone is going to deal with it, smokers or non-smokers. Non-smokers are going to live a lot longer. If you smoke, it just makes you more stressed cos you will start worrying about your health and your life.
BEN MITCHELL: People smoke, they stop thinking about their worries and think that the stress is going away but in fact smoking's causing more stress internally. They get more stressed from the addiction, going 'I need to smoke, I need to smoke.' It’s an addiction, chemically and psychologically, they need it and they’re creating stress doing that.
MYTH: SMOKING KEEPS YOU THIN
PENNY NEWTON: By the time I was nineteen I was smoking to replace snacks to help keep me thin. I wanted to send that message to other young girls that it’s not actually the way to keep thin at all. I used to be heavily involved in fitness but because I was coughing up tar every morning I didn’t feel like exercising therefore I don’t feel like eating the right foods. So it’s actually worked in reverse in the long term.