Markers of the denormalisation of smoking and the tobacco industry.
BACKGROUND
In nations with histories of declining smoking prevalence and comprehensive tobacco control policies, smoking-positive cultures have been severely eroded. Smoking, smokers and the tobacco industry are today routinely depicted in everyday discourse and media representations in a variety of overwhelmingly negative ways. Several authors have invoked Erving Goffman's notions of stigmatization to describe the process and impact of this radical transformation, which importantly includes motivating smoking cessation. Efforts to describe nations' progress toward comprehensive tobacco control have hitherto taken little account of the role of cultural change to the meaning of smoking and the many ways in which it has become denormalised.


METHODS
This paper identifies a diversity of generally undocumented yet pervasive markers of the "spoiled identity" of smoking, smokers and the tobacco industry, illustrated with examples from Australia, a nation with advanced tobacco control.


RESULTS
We caution about some important negative consequences arising from the stigmatization of smokers.


CONCLUSIONS
We recommend that schemes rating the comprehensiveness of national tobacco control should be supplemented by documentation of markers of this denormalisation.
Chapman
S
S
School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia. sc@med.usyd.edu.au
Freeman
B
B
D001315:Australia; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000401:mortality; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000379:methods; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D012918:Social Alienation / Q000523:psychology*; D011049:Social Control Policies / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D013240:Stereotyping; D019460:Tobacco Industry / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects
D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution