“Smoker's crime”
First print date: July 30 1977
Prog appearance: 23
Writer(s): John Wagner
Artist(s): Mike McMahon
Total episodes: 1
Everyone knows smoking is bad for your health. Some people choose to ignore that risk, and that, in this century, is their right, as smoking is certainly legal (as long as it's only tobacco you're smoking!), however in Mega-City One this is a crime, at least to smoke in public is, and can land you in an iso-cube faster than you can say “I'm gasping for a cigarette!” It is though a relatively minor crime, and not something to really trouble Dredd, until he is called to the scene of a bank robbery, which has also turned into a murder. One bank teller was brave/stupid enough to try to hit the silent alarm and was shot dead for his trouble. As Dredd arrives at the bank, the cops there tell him there are no clues, since the thieves were all wearing old spacesuits, but Dredd reaches down and picks up a cigar butt. All tobacco products carry a special brand on them, and since Dredd chooses to believe that none of these law-abiding citizens could have been smoking and breaking the law in the bank (surely if they had been, the cops there would have arrested them or called the Judges?), this could very well be a clue to the murdering bandits' identities, or at least their location.
He tracks the butt to a cigar shop, where the owner protests his innocence: none of his customers, he tells the angry Judge, smoke on the streets. But Dredd lies in wait for the thieves, who return to the shop to buy a celebratory box of cigars for their leader before hightailing it out of town. Dredd gets the drop on them, but Al, the leader, is outside waiting for his henchmen to bring him his favourite smokes and hears the commotion. He shoots at Dredd, who surprises him by coming, not out of the door, but through the window on his Lawmaster! Pursuing the felon, Dredd warns him he is risking summary execution at the hands of his bike's cannons, but the lawbreaker runs into another building, shooting a guard as he enters.
Unfortunately for Al though, he has blundered into the Smokatorium, the only public place in the city where smoking is allowed, once smokers wear encasing helmets which keeps the smoke away from each other. Stumbling into the thick, choking atmosphere of the Smokatorium, Al staggers and runs blindly out, right into Dredd who, after warning him to drop his gun, drops the perp.
Quotes
Dredd: “You didn't actually light those disgusting objects, so I can let you off with a warning. Now beat it! I got better things to do than lecture stupid kids!”
Teen: “There goes Dredd! Just seein' him makes me edgy!”
(A sentiment many in the city no doubt share!)
Al: “Friend, I just wasted a good cigar! Now I'm gonna waste you!”
Mr.Rizzo: “There you are, gents. But you know the law: no smoking on the streets!”
Thug: “Who cares about pollution? We just robbed a bank!”
(How obliging of the thief to confirm the suspicions of Dredd, who is lying in wait. Not that the lack of such evidence would really stop the Judge, but I guess it's nice to be sure. A readymade confession!)
Dredd: “Only dead men walk out of doors, lawbreaker! Smart ones use the window!”
Dredd: “You have just added dangerous driving to your list of crimes!”
(What does it matter though? The guy murdered someone in cold blood: surely he faces a summary death sentence for that?)
Dredd: “You were given the warning and you ignored it. Now you know too late: smoking damages your health!”
(Ah, John! Did you have to?)
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Looks like they're still working on what to call the criminals. Eventually they would end up being perps (perpetrators) when spoken of, and creep when spoken to, but here Dredd chooses to describe them as lawbreakers. Which of course they are. He has also used the word citizen to describe them, which is technically also true.
Laughing in the face of death
Well it's a kind of obvious last sentence, but I suppose it might be good for a chuckle, back then.
Return of the Nitpicker!
The language here is a little stilted again. Though Al and his gang use the usual rough talk, as they hold up the bank they refer to the customers as “citizens”, when something cruder --- richos, losers, snobs, creeps even --- would I think have been more believable.
I'll ask the questions, Creep!
How is it possible that there's a loophole in the law that allows cigarettes to be sold, as long as they're not smoked on the streets? And how can the owner of the shop declare that his customers don't smoke on the streets? How does he know? Has he signed affidavits from them all? Surely this is the same argument used by warez sites, for instance, when they advise any downloaders to delete the files once they've “researched” them, in the full knowledge that nobody is going to take any notice of this?
Also, where in the good green Hell did those robbers get those spacesuits? And is it coincidence that they link to the smokers' helmets in the Smokatorium? And would not a bunch of guys so dressed, walking into a bank, attract, not only the attention of any passing Judge on their entrance but be easily spotted leaving? How could they have just melted away into the crowd, wearing such easily identifiable outfits? Sure, they probably ditched them soon after, but unless they took them off right at the door (which they couldn't have; astronaut suits take a long time to put on and take off, and the alarm had been raised so they were in a hurry) they would have had to have ditched them either at a safe house (which they don't seem clever enough to have arranged beforehand) or in an alley, where they could be easily found, DNA-printed I assume, and thus tracked down?
Whose hand did Al burn when he put out his cigar on it? We're led to believe it's the teller who raised the alarm, and who he subsequently shoots, but we can see in the next panel that the guy is too far away to have been in direct contact with the perp. He shoots him from a short distance --- a few feet maybe --- away. So he was unlikely to have had him brought up to him, stubbed out his cigar on his hand and then pushed him away before shooting him. Is the hand, then, that of one of his own men? We're not told, but as they exit the bank, none of the robbers are wincing or holding their hand. So who was it? It's a very small niggle, but you know me: I love pulling at loose threads!
The officer Dredd speaks to in the bank has an armband that reads “Bank Squad”. Is this a division of the local police (we saw there are “normal” cops, ie not Judges, in a previous story) hired out to protect the banks, and if so, where the hell were they when the robbery was being committed? If not, perhaps they're a private security firm banks employ themselves. Same question. And if the latter, why would Dredd address him as “officer”? If a cop is talking to a security guard he doesn't use that term, as the man is seen as a civilian.
Is it just me, or does that guy Rizzo look like Hitler?
I AM THE LAW!
Is he though? Twice here, Dredd reveals something of a confusing grasp of the law. In the first panels, he lets some kids go because they had not lit up their cigarettes. But they were in possession of them in the street, and he knows they were about to smoke them, so surely intent is the same in the law as actual action? Should they not have been arrested for, let's say, “intent to smoke”? Was Dredd being kind here, letting them off?
Dredd? Kind?
More to the point though: Al and his cronies have killed a bank teller. This surely, in as fascist a city as Mega-City One, carries a mandatory death penalty. Not only that, but Al kills another guy on his way into the Smokatorium and was lying in wait to attempt to kill Dredd when he came out. So why then does the Judge give him the option of surrender? Surely nothing but death awaits the perp, who must know that, and chooses to go out in a blaze of glory. Why then does Dredd say “Your choice”. Was it? We'll see later that Dredd is not above dispensing instant justice on the spot for such crimes: why not here?
Welcome to the world of tomorrow!
Where smoking has been banned, outlawed and is entirely illegal, unless you smoke in the one place in Mega-City One created for that purpose, the Smokatorium. Actually, it may be legal to smoke indoors, as the proprietor of the tobacco shop, Rizzo, goes to great lengths to remind Dredd that none of his customers smoke on the streets. Perhaps what a citizen does in the privacy of their own home is not the pervue of the Judges? Yet...
At any rate, the Smokatorium is a purpose-built building where those who wish to may indulge their filthy habit legally, and in a safe environment: safe for them, and safe for the public. Smokers put on large astronaut-style helmets, to which are affixed something like a breathing tube. The cigarette, cigar or pipe is inserted here and goes through to the person's mouth. Smoking can then be indulged in while all around them smoke their own brand and nobody breathes the smoke of anyone else. This smoke of course floats around in a cloud outside the helmets, deadly with its carcinogens and poisons, but nobody would be stupid enough to enter the Smokatorium without a helmet, now would they? Since it's not fully explained, I can only assume the helmet is fitted before one enters the room, as if you had to wait to get “suited up”, you would probably already be breathing someone else's secondhand smoke.
Messages
Only one clear and rather heavy-handed one: smoking kills. There's really nothing else you can take from this episode, other than that Dredd always gets his man. It's overall a pretty poor and weak episode really, which exists for one reason and one reason alone: to warn kids about the dangers of smoking. And while that's a laudable goal, let's be honest here: no government in reality wants people to stop smoking altogether. Think of the loss to the Exchequer! Think of the unemployment. Think of the foreign investments that would pull out. Think of the loss of advertising revenue and even the reduced need, perhaps, for doctors. No, like it or not, the plague of smoking is with us to stay, and any government that increases the price of a pack of twenty does so in the clear and unambiguous knowledge that smokers will pay. They're a valuable source of revenue, and sure if millions of them die, what of it? The next generation is waiting to take their place, and always will be.
So this serves as almost a campaign advertisement for the anti-smoking lobby. In the hope that the kids would think that if someone as tough and cool as Dredd hates smoking, they will too, the story is written to warn kids off the dangers of tobacco and perhaps to try to counteract, with harsh reality and a dose of black humour, the entreaties of the cigarette companies who, at this point, were still allowed to advertise and make smoking look cool.
There is some delicious irony in the fact that smoking ends up being the perp's undoing. He who loves the cigars so much finds that even he can't stand the unrestricted smoke and it forces him out into the street, into a confrontation with Dredd which costs him his life. Like they say: smoking kills.
Nothing changes?
From the days of the Wild West, cigarette and cigar stores have had (for some reason) a wooden bust of an Indian (Native American) in their shop. Here, even though it's the twenty-second century, it would seem this practice is still continued.
Plus ca change, non?