Is it just me, or is cigarette smoking suddenly popular again?

My state recently dramatically raised taxes on cigarettes and it seemed to dramatically reduce the number of smokers I see out and about, with the holdovers puffing on reservation blends.

Do you live in the south 🤔

America is moving backwards due to moral decay of society as a result of evil media and loss of jobs to automation

30 and 40 somethings are routinely getting cancer from processed garbage food and environmental pollutants. Young people are getting hardened arteries from microplastics mixed with plaques. Good luck buying a house or paying your student loans on your paltry entry-to-mid level salary. World peace and global prosperity? Not with this crew of knucklehead boomers in charge of the world's economies and nuclear arsenals.

We all got to die at some point, might as well pick up some soothing vices to enjoy what time you have.

It’s probably from vaping. You get addicted to nicotine in vapes and cigarettes are the next step.

Immigrants- most smokers I know are foreign born.

There are more Americans working today than at any time in our nation's history, Your "loss of jobs" comment is nonsense.

Many of the characters in today's movies smoke like fiends as I am sure Hollywood is being well paid to have them do so.

This influences younger viewers

Tobacco free nicotine pouches are on a big trajectory. Zyn, Velo, On, etc have all grown significantly.

I do it occasionally and it’s a nice subtle way to get a little kick. I’m in my mid 40s and never did tobacco outside a drunk cigarette very rarely and a dip on the golf course if a friend has a can.

Definitely have done more pouches than tobacco products combined, and my cardio fitness has improved significantly due to training, with no adverse affects besides the occasional GI issues.

OP this was a news story today so it is odd that you are pretending that this is not the impetus for the thread.

I can't say I noticed that. I remember the 80s and sitting in smokey restaurants and bars. Now in my entire company we have 2 smokers and they have to leave our property to even smoke. Not building, the sprawling 10,000 a re grounds as well.

My kid is 7 and a out a week ago saw the first cigarette of his life and asked what it was and why is stank.

I haven’t smoked in many years, but I see that the price for a pack of cigs is around $12 ! How in the heck can someone who isn’t pretty well off financially afford that? Two packs a day comes out to around $720/month. Gee willakers!

At a job in construction there was a ton of GenZ vaping. It was annoying because unlike with smoking they can vape inside and people don’t really notice it even though that chemical sht is around

And the same people who smoke $700 in cigarettes per year will call me pretentious for buying a good bottle of scotch a couple times per year.

You not understanding the labor participation rate and population growth is nonsense.

It’s definitely related to vapes. We almost got rid of smoking in the USA it felt like but went backwards once vapes came around. Since those became so widely accepted, some people went back to cigarettes. Younger people don’t see as much of stigma with cigarettes since they are so used to seeing people vaping

Nope. I understand it all.