The smokers are vanishing

[andrewducker]

Interesting societal change - both Gideon and Sophia were amazed a few days ago when they saw a woman smoking. Because neither of them have seen someone smoking before. Gideon was delighted and called her a dragon.

Smoking has gone from over 40% when I was born to around 15% now.

Even without the smoking ban it looks like rates would continue to drop. With Labour planning to continue with the Conservative's plans I can see it vanishing over the next couple of decades.

Comments

[lilysea]

Apparently in Australia, tho

some teenagers who started with vaping because it was "cleaner" / "healthier" than cigarettes (it isn't and it's not)

responded to the crackdown on underage people buying vapes

by switching to cigarettes :(

[andrewducker]

My understanding is that vaping is not great, but is vastly better than cigarettes: https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/#is-vaping-harmful

Clamping down on it is a very silly thing to do.

[skington]

The thing about vaping that annoys me is the conflation between vapes with nicotine (which should be encouraged to existing smokers as a way of quitting / at least not breathing burning stuff into your lungs, but otherwise banned) and vapes without (which are basically harmless, with the one caveat that we don’t know what the actual vaping process does to you yet because it hasn’t been 30 years).

[pseudomonas]

Glad to see it's dropping. I continue to oppose banning drugs, and I see no need to treat tobacco as an exception to this principle. (of course banning its use in public places and workplaces is a different matter, because the rest of us need to breathe too; but in private that's not an argument.)

[andrewducker]

I can totally see that. And on other hand I was horrified to see a young mother with her baby smoking a cigarette a few days ago.

I can definitely see a line between drugs where people take them for fun and ones where people seem to largely take them because you get cravings when you try to stop. But it's all rather messy and tends to cause problems if you ban things.

[wildeabandon]

I think something that often gets missed, especially by people who have never smoked, is that a nicotine buzz is actually quite a pleasant sensation, especially if you're someone who tends to be wound quite tightly.

I wouldn't recommend taking it up, and I'm grateful that I found it as easy to quit as I did, because for me the cost/benefit ratio made it not worthwhile, but other people get to make their own calculations, and especially when the cost of vaping is comparatively lower I can see it being a perfectly rational choice.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. And with vaping you're not doing any harm to anyone else other than maybe a smell they don't like

[snippy]

Or are allergic to. Or have their asthma triggered by.

[ninetydegrees]

One of the major problems of this particular type of drug is the massive pollution this leads to though. It's not just not having to breathe it (although I do wish I could open my windows and not have its smell inside my flat whenever someone's smoking so private consumption is never totally private in my experience).

[splodgenoodles]

Yes, I also see prohibition as a bad idea. Interesting problem here in Australia now, where tobacco prices have gone through the roof: organised crime.

To me there seem to be two problems: taxing tobacco has been seen as inherently good, but maybe the government is now a bit too keen on getting that money.

And maybe, now, they've gone beyond the 'sweet spot' where higher prices discourage smoking. Smoking is still high among lower socio-economic groups. They have kept smoking while the price goes up and up, and they are a ready market for illegal tobacco.

My own take (ex research assistant in drug and alcohol so I did a lot of reading back in the day) is that most smokers now are hardcore smokers. They can't quit without more intervention.

Good article here:
from the ABC

[ninetydegrees]

Wow that's great news! It's still between 20 and 30% here with social factors still having a big impact :/ You can't walk around and not see several people smoking or vaping.

[cellio]

It's beautiful, isn't it? We can now go into most places without being smothered in foul, abrasive stench.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. Banning smoking in pubs back in 2006 was the big step there for me. Suddenly I didn't smell horrible coming home from a night out.
And then pubs starting cleaning themselves more, because the smell of smoke wasn't covering up the stale sweat, vomit, etc. any more. So now they're much nicer in general.

[threemeninaboat]

We noticed that you guys have a lot more vapers than we do.

[fub]

At least here in the Netherlands, smoking seems to be making a come-back for some reason. Even though the tax on cigarettes makes it stupidly expensive.

[alithea]

It's amazing, isn't it? I *really* notice people smoking on TV when I watch stuff from before the ban now. And I don't think anyone I know personally smokes any more and I don't often see it on the street here now either. In fact, if we didn't have a factory opposite and a bus stop next door, I would quite possibly *never* see it in my every day life. And there are more people who vape at the bus stop than smoke.

[andrewducker]

I can only think of one smoker who I know to talk to. She's our cleaner.

[myka]

That's brilliant! I was astonished when I went to Austria last year and saw cigarette vending machines - don't think I'd seen those since the 1970s.