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I was shocked how many people smoke in Europe.

smoking tobacco has gone down similarly in the USA, here it has been replaced with smoking weed instead. It took about 40 years last time to see the effects of widespread cigarette smoking. We'd hope to do better with the effects of widespread weed, except the CDC has been dissolved.. it's up to EU

A lot of those 'non-smokers' vape like chimneys though, so it's a tad misleading.

I'm 74 next month, and at university, in my early jobs and in pubs it was common for most people to smoke, some of them heavily. One office I worked in during the 1980s was like a fog by the end of the day.

5 of my current colleagues smoke/vape/alternate between the two - found it really surprising when I started there! (There aren’t many of us so it’s a high proportion.)

The enormous taxes added to them making them completely unaffordable to most is why a lot of people stopped.

nice to see a downward line graph that is positive for once

I tried to quit for 30 years. Patches, Wellbutrin, Chantic, gum, willpower, nothing. Until 2 years ago where I tried Wellbutrin and Chantix both together. In 3 months went frim 15/day to 1-2/day. I drink a lot less, too. It required ZERO willpower!

I was in Edgware General Hospital in London in 1985. At the end of the ward was the TV room where you were free to smoke whilst recovering from your op. The smoking ban was one of the best things, like compulsory seatbelts, genuine lifesavers.

You see that sudden drop in men around 2004 when Shameless first aired and smoking wasn't portrayed as this cool thing to do? I could be looking into things but it could be an indication of how much the media affects society. Which is why I think the BBC needs to push to bring back Police Boxes.

Evolution would only work if smokers died before reproductive age.

When I studied for A levels in 1980-1982, we were allowed to smoke in class 🫤

Thank you so much!

Good news.

This shows the share of adults who smoke or use tobacco in the world. It's around 1/3 in Turkey and France. It was 14% in the UK and has decreased to 10% in 2024

But what % vape?

When I was in primary school, c. 1970, my class teacher had an ash tray on his desk and smoked while he talked to kids standing next to him as he marked their work.

I delayed going to uni a few years and got the same marketing tactic for Red Bull.

Incredible.

Why anyone under 70 smokes is a mystery to me.

What about vaping?

I dunno... Seen a bunch Grandads and Grannies vaping in GB. Like a real odd amount.

She also remarked on how clean and quiet it was, rather different from my memories of the 70's.

In 1950, over 80% of men and 40% of women were smokers. www.bmj.com/content/321/...

No one said it wasn't.

The power of sensible legislation that cuts off the propaganda money. Now if only we could do the same with the propaganda money from Russia and the US far right.

i'm so glad 🍁🛶❤️💙💚🔬⚖️🌻🌻🌻✊

That's exactly how i felt about road deaths(/car commutes) after visiting Tokyo

Someone described having a smoking area in a restaurant like having a pissing area in a swimming pool

My mom has a picture of her in the hospital after giving birth with an ashtray on the side table.

My granny used to have to regularly wash her net curtains due to the hideous staining from their cigarette habit. Back then almost everybody in my family smoked. I cannot remember the last time I saw someone with a cigarette in their hand

I'll see your restaurant and raise you aeroplanes... Five rows of business class and the back one or two rows were smoking seats.. lovely!

Smoking bans, along with the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, are the greatest improvement to quality of life in my lifetime

I’m an American and I was on the continent last month. The number of people smoking on the street was jarring

Well for a start look up the price of 50g of tobacco in the UK then do a few random European countries..

I’m old enough to remember this:

US cigarettes sales are now dropping 10% per year according to Goldman Sachs. A few years ago, that was 5%/year. The historical trend from the last 1960s to 10 years ago was 2% per year. 1/2 ⬇️

Despite this, smoking remains the leading risk factor for preventable death in the UK, raising the risk of many cancers, heart attacks, and strokes. Fewer smokers means fewer people suffering from these serious diseases.

£25 for a pack of tobacco probably playing as major a roll as any of these factors tbh

The UK stank of tobacco smoke in the 70s and 80s. Foul.

This survey asks about frequency of use (in categories) rather than amount consumed, so I suspect it will be less vulnerable to that sort of wishful thinking. But obviously all survey based estimates have limitations.

Vaping is smoking.

I doubt it's the taxation which is driving change. Education and the change in social norms has reduced the take-up of smoking. And, sadly, health issues have likely reduced the number of older smokers.

Now everyone vapes instead.

Now we just need to wean people off of vapes

The label text says “almost half” (ie a rounding of the mean of the male and female rates at the start of the time series) and “about 1-in-10” (a rounding of the mean rate at the end of the time series). The left-hand arrow placement could make that slightly clearer, but it’s not “shockingly bad”.

I remember well smoke on flights, trains, the underground and buses. Everyday your clothes smelt of smoke. The power of marketing and the media.

Previously all meetings were provided with ashtrays. Then things started changing. A person who I regularly sat next to at meetings smoking, summed it up for me. I found an outdoor table for a break and smoked. Others joined me. That other person chose to join. And then asked me to stop smoking

My belief is that smoking is one of the only polite ways to talk with strangers in France so it's way harder to kill (also NHS pushed their doctors hard on anti-smoking while France keeps docs more independent)

Yes, it is crazy.

Oh yeah the cultural value of smoking makes it a permanent force but that's why there was a converted effort in the UK to make it unwanted and socially unacceptable. All measures were used. Smoking now is some odd niche interest.