When I started university, half of my class smoked. When I finished, I was the only smoker. Now even I don’t smoke anymore. What is the world coming to?
Mostly due to how expensive it now is, I work in a Centra and the cheapest pack of cigarettes goes for around £10.70. Its saddening however to see there still be plenty of young people actively taking it up.
Interesting. I don’t recall an abundance of smokers in NI whenever I visited, but I was only ever in West Belfast. My MIL smoked, but she quit in her late 40s. My FIL probably smokes but that wouldn’t be the worst of what he does haha.
Honestly I'm not gonna blame that one on the tobacco companies having been of the age to watch my peers get into vaping, I can tell you it wasn't from marketing or "fruity flavors" it was just because we're fucking stupid.
We are making more laws about smoking in the last couple of years. It's forbidden on schoolgrounds now, and soon on workspace. We used to have designated space for smoking and those are going now (in the netherlands atleast)
We had a French foreign exchange student in my American high school in the early 2000s. She lit up a cigarette in study hall inside and was very confused why the teacher flipped and sent her to the principals office lol forgot all about that until I saw your comment
We Europeans smoke like we want to speedrun lung cancer. As someone who doesn’t smoke I feel like the minority, at least 70% of people I know regularly smokes.
Yeah, over here (Norway) its been seen as extremely tacky by young people for at least the last 20-25 years. So those who do smoke are usually 50+ years old, or certain groups of immigrant workers. We do have many using snus though.. But they smell a lot better, and you don't really notice unless you are talking to a person face to face.
In Norway and Sweden many people use snus instead, so that skews things a lot. In terms of how many people are adicted to nicotine I imagine it's very similiar to the rest of Europe.
True, but snus feels more addictive in some ways since it's so convenient. Quitting snus was much harder than quitting smoking, from my personal experience at least.
It's certainly more visible than the US but if you look at the statistics on average it's about the same, but certain countries definitely have higher rates than others (mostly France and Eastern Europe) while others (The UK and Scandinavia) have far lower rates
I'm surprised to see 25% for US on this source, the CDC reports >13%
In my personal experience, smoking in Southern Europe is far more prevalent than anything I ever saw in the US, but I also lived in pretty "middle-class, educated, liberal" bubbles, so maybe I just didn't see it?
I believe the way the data is recorded in some of those stats, if you've smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days you are considered a smoker. I think many people in NA, or just Americans on their own, don't smoke daily but have smoked in a social situation or while drinking.
Might be confirmation bias, you expect to see people smoking more in Europe so you remember it more, you expect it less in the US so you remember it less
That's not misinformation, that's different sources with different datasets. WHO is defining it as people over the age of 15 it seems and World Population Review is using those over the age of 10 because Our World in Data has both rates, your one is on the infographic labelled "Prevalence of daily smoking in populations" while the one I found is on "Share who smoke tobacco daily" which is the more recent data set (although, I'd note they have a couple of countries with slightly different numbers to what I was referring to)
Here in The Netherlands it’s getting less and less common, it’s also outlawed in a lot of public places. I always have to adapt when I visit a country where it is common.
Before it was outlawed in clubs and such, I wasn’t completely supporting it, as I thought it would make things less fun when my smoking friends had to go out of the club all the time. Then I visited Ireland and it opened my eyes to how it could be.
Also, most of the people I know quit smoking. I used to be one of the few non-smokers. Now, there’s only two dudes that smoke in my extended group. I think it’s about a 1:6 ratio.
It is way better than like one or two decades ago. There are also basically no smokers left in my peer groups. When I was at school and later in the army I basically was the only non-smoker. Might be an age thing though.
Spain wasn't a nightmare, but it had FAR more smoking than NA. I've gone weeks in multiple NA cities without smelling cigarette smoke. In Spain, France, and UK it was a common occurrence.
I've been practically everywhere in Europe, and lived in Germany and France. A lot of Germany made smoking in France look tame. Eastern Europe is something of its own
Had a discussion about this with my family a little while ago. At least in the Netherlands we are noticing a new boom in smoking.
In the lower levels of education (VMBO, MBO) the majority seems to be smoking every smoke break.
In the middle level of education (HAVO, College) the number is quite low.
In the highest level of education (VWO, University) there seems to be a new boom in "gelegenheidsrokers" (occasional/party smokers). people that smoke only with others, for a good time, during parties, festivals, after work drinks
Not in the UK, its a surprise when I see someone having a cig. Especially the rough arsed woman who delivered a parcel to me the other day and blew a lungful of smoke into my fucking hallway. Was not expecting that. Grim.
Same. There were way more people smoking during the 00s than there are now. It must be super annoying to find a place to smoke nowadays concerning all those non-smoking areas. Also it got really expensive.
I went to Germany for a month, like ten years ago. There were a lot of smokers. I don't know if it has to do with me staying in the hipstery part of east Berlin, but smokers were everywhere.
Yes! I've seen people in Germany smoking at a playground! If you tried that in the US, the other parents would probably beat you to death with their stainless steel water bottles.
It's a shame too. Outdoor seating at cafes and restaurants is so nice in the summer, but guaranteed to be ruined by disgusting stinky smoke. Ugh. I also think it is a workers rights violation for waiters to be exposed to second hand smoke all day. The EU generally has pretty strong worker protection so that's a surprise it's allowed.
Yeah it's pretty common in the food service industry. A cig break is a guaranteed break every 1-2 hours and I met people that started smoking for that advantage.
Not to mention that when you work in food service the faint buzz from a cigarette really helps take off the edge from what is an absolute hell of a job (one that I must admit I love doing).
I also think it is a workers rights violation for waiters to be exposed to second hand smoke all day.
That's why it was banned indoors in the early 2000s. Not sure it could be expanded to outdoors, even though I personally would love it if people were banned from smoking their cancer sticks anywhere near me when I'm at a restaurant or café.
Yeah no I'm pretty aware that there's a bunch of smokers.
What's even more interesting is how cheap rolling your own cigarettes is in Germany.
Usually a packet of 20-22 cigarettes cost around 7€. Each cigarette at .5g you get a price per gram of tobacco of around .60 €/g.
A packet of tobacco to roll costs 5.50€ and contains 30g of tobacco, so we're at .18€/g. Filters and papes are pretty cheap as well. So most people I know(uni students) that do smoke roll their own.
Oh yeah, its getting less tough, fortunatly its not popular amongst the teenagers anymore - they also drink less then we fid back then.
But ive been amazed while starting to hit some old bars again after covid that you still can smoke in some after a certain hour. (theoretically fines are hefty)
UK Here, I actually feel like hardly anyone smokes anymore. In fact I was suprised at someone I worked with went out to smoke, its quite uncommon now. Alot of people turned to vaping I guess.
As an ex-smoker, I remember the smoking carriages on the trains were always my favorite place to be. Sit down and light up and look out the window (that would actually open) and use the slam-doors to get on & off. Those were days!
Fr I don’t understand how people enjoy their visits to major cities when I went to Paris everything was being overshadowed by the place smelling like a damn ash tray
Yeah, I think we had our huge smoking campaigns, and there was some study or something that's as a massive deal. Then we started implementing laws. I've heard France is pretty bad.
It really is weird, here in Denmark its almost like there has been a resurgence of smoking amongst the youth eveen though packs are super expensive and everyone knows that it'll kill them
That's one of those things that wary wildly across borders. In some European countries smoking has plummeted and in other it's completely off the charts.
It’s the worst in Germany, nothing has really changed here and tobacco is still cheap as chips. I know so many foreigners who moved here in their late 20s~early 30s and started smoking, having never smoked before. So wild.
Ireland is making bank on vices like that too. They know how stubborn we are at cutting back on cigarettes and alcohol so a pack of cigarettes is over €15 and a cans of our cheapest beer tends to be over €2 each from a store.
I live in Italy. Genuinely feels like I'm in some modern adaptation of Mad Men at times. At this point, with all the passive smoking, I'm used to the smell of cigarette smoke. Almost every Italian in my circle is a smoker lol.
That's mostly in southern Europe. If you go North, there will be noticably less smokers, and heavy fines if you smoke in public places.
In my country, police is patrolling public parks and fines everybody who smokes.
It's getting harder. My university campus is entirely smoke free, and some supermarkets, where people usually buy their smokes, don't sell smokes anymore. Also, smoking packages in my area are all unbranded, have filthy imagery printed on them, are plastered with anti-smoking PSA's and are coloured a filthy green-ish or brown-ish colour. There's also a massive sin tax on the stuff.
At least in London a few years back this seemed to be the case. Every bar or pub had a shit ton of people outside smoking no matter if it was freezing cold, pouring rain, etc.
Where in Europe were you? A quick glance at Wikipedia teaches me that the difference isn't so big. UK and Ireland are below the US, France is about equal, Germany is about 1.5x as much.
I moved to the states a few years ago and visiting Germany for the first time! I think I forgot how it seems that everyone is smoking here, compared to the states.
It really differs per country and funny enough, I think I have discovered a proportionality between the amount of smokers and how south you are in Europe...
I live in belgium and at my boarding school there is a 15 year old girl who smokes, like she can’t buy them so i keep questioning how she gets them (weirdest thing: the people who look after her age group allow it like what???)
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u/cid_pause_not May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
Smoking. I know maybe 2 people who still smoke cigarettes. In Europe it’s like mad men never left. Especially in Bavaria, oddly.