Health experts think low tobacco prices, a general tolerance of smoking and changes brought by the pandemic may explain the uptick in cigarette use.
I met this 18 yo girl who smoked not so long ago. Like really? How does one even get started these days?
It’s pretty easy. Smoking never really stopped in Germany. Vending machines are everywhere. They require age verification, which is not hard to bypass.
We got rid of indoor smoking, but we still accept that people smoke.
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18 is good. In my previous neighbourhood I lived next to a school. A bunch of 14 year olds with smoke under the supervision of their teachers just outside the gates during recess.
There’s no culture of smoking suppression in Germany. You’ll see behaviours treated as normal that would trigger an emergency meeting elsewhere.
You hear constant propaganda about how something’s bad for you, you try it to rebel a bit, you get a buzz, you get addicted.
Some people simply aren’t as attached to life as you are.
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I got started because my parents were careless and thought itd be funny to force me to smoke cigs when I was 7, they got me hooked on tobacco, weed, and alcohol which ruined basically my entire childhood and teenage years.
I’m a firm believer that a lot of the time kids get started because of abuse or neglect from the parents. Please blame the parents and not the kids. I promise you they dont know any better.
That’s not careless, that’s child abuse.
Why would anybody possibly blame the kids, or you? That’s fucked up.
its pretty common to have school kids 15+ start smoking. and it’s easy for them. cigarettes are presented in vending machines everywhere or sold by unbothered vendors.
Single use vapes seem to be everywhere these days here in Germany. Plus they have been advertised by influencers at the beginning of the pandemic, directly to underage children. Glad they forbid that at the beginning of 2021.
Interesting and appalling, which Influencers did that?
I don’t follow them, so can’t give the names. The problem continues because now they just use them in a stylish way without directly advertising them. Here is a article about swiss influencers. In Switzerland is is still legal it seems.
Thanks :)
Smoking is such as disgusting habit and I could never imagine having a smoker as my partner.
So sad seeing more and more young people smoking around here rather than less as should be expected.
I have one. Don’t marry a smoker if you aren’t one. They might quit for a while but will resent you for it. It was easier just to let her start again, and rig up some exhaust fans and smart switches to protect myself.
Personally I wonder if switching from the term ‘smoker’ to something more accurately describing the experience for people around them, maybe something like ‘stinker’ and ‘horrible stinker’ instead of ‘heavy smoker’ might help reduce the appeal.
The exact opposite has happened, because “smoking” was a bad term, now it is “vaping” and that sounds cool, doesn’t it. That’s also the way smoking made a comeback with young people, vaping and
tabaktabacco with sweet tastes and nice scent and shisha bars.*tabacco
And at least vapers don’t stink. Nicotine on its own isn’t even too bad for health. It’s just catastrophic when it makes people inhale smoke.
Vapers make the entire area around them stink
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*tobacco
What a word!
This is just anectodal evidence, but I feel like more people have started to smoke again during the last ~10 years or so.
A few years ago, aggressive marketing rules were introduced here in Germany which resulted in very disgusting pictures on cigarette boxes displaying the consequences of lung cancer etc.
The thing is, when those rules were introduced, cigarette boxes were still prominently displayed everywhere. You just had them lying around en masse at the counter or checkout in any shop, so even as a non-smoker you always had to see the consequences of destroying your own body when you inhale toxic substances. And during that time, I was rarely seeing people smoking at all. It just got really, really uncool to do it.
Nowadays you don’t really see those boxes anymore. You have to ask the lady at the counter for them or you go to one of those neutral-looking vending machines we have on the streets. I’m not sure if this is what causes people to start smoking again, maybe it’s also the rise of vaping influencers.
I believe there was a study done 1 or 2 years ago that came to the conclusion that especially younger people have started smoking again. I wonder why? Is it just that typical phase of being different than the older generation?
I would love if people would just go back and stop smoking again. Especially those arseholes that are smoking while waiting at a red light. These people deserve a special kind of hell. The second group is smokers selling stuff on eBay and omitting that detail in the description.
I was against smoking until I arrived in the psychward. If you’re suicidal your health isn’t that important to you.
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That makes no sense at all.
As many as 80% of people with schizophrenia smoke. If you go to a psych ward everyone is a smoker.
And how does that change anything? These people with actual mental illnesses do it so it must be good? I don’t follow your line of reasoning.
They said it in the end of their original comment
When you’re suicidal you do not care about your health at all and so because smoking feels good, they do it not giving a shit about the consequences.
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Well, I’m not in the psychward for making sense. :)
Think about it, smoking is as green as it gets. Think of how much waste every human makes every year and how many animals have to die just to sustain the average human for a year. Think of how much plastic waste the average human makes. If every human lived 20 fewer years, that’s mountains of garbage and billions of creatures saved from extinction.
Now that’s a hot take
Only if you’re cremated.
So, if I’m speeding with my car in a school zone…?
You deserve a discount on your taxes, yes.
But then we have to pay for lung cancer treatments and these don’t go cheap…
It is dying here because they are $50 a pack…
As a German living in Australia I can ensure you, smoking is still just as prevalent, it’s just people here being addicted to vapes instead of traditional cigarettes.
Disposable vapes are also dangerously cheap (2000 puff vapes are equivalent to about 10 packs of cigarettes, while only costing about $20) and despite efforts to ban them, easily available at any TSG/Ezymart without age verification.
Yeah, vaping is growing in the US too.
Vaping is the next to fall, another unhealthy activity that become less cooler year after year.
I dunno. It’s growing pretty quickly globally.
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/e-cigarette-vaping-market
The global e-cigarette and vape market size was valued at USD 22.45 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.6% from 2023 to 2030. The public’s growing understanding of e-cigarettes being safer than traditional cigarettes, particularly among younger people, due to numerous studies conducted by medical institutions and associations, is forecasted to fuel market growth. In addition, it is anticipated that the manufacturers’ wide range of customization options, including temperature control and nicotine dosages, will help the product demand. Moreover, growing e-cigarette technologies like pod systems and squonk mods have gained popularity and user adoption in recent years.
Market size value in 2023
USD 28.17 billion
Revenue forecast in 2030
USD 182.84 billion
The anti-smoking movement – at least in the US – didn’t center around nicotine addiction, but around the negative secondary health effects.
Any similar secondary negative effects for vaping are pretty limited. So it’s arguing just against the addiction alone. And I’m not sure that that’s an easy case to make.
I don’t doubt it’s growing, but I think it’s the classic temporary trend, a huge growth with an equally huge fall. Vape is harmful, something to be left to itself, there aren’t many excuses that hold.
Everything is harmful though, that’s the problem of existence. Nicotine is a psychoactive drug that does have both positive and negative effects. Vaping is safer than almost every other delivery method, and it’s the safest recreational delivery method available. There’s more than enough education on why nicotine is bad, which is the most you can really do.
People still drink, despite the physical addiction risks, the massive health risks of even a single drink a week, and the fact drinking any amount puts you almost comically more at risk of physical injury than not drinking. The education is fully out there. People still do it.
Free will is a hell of a thing, and restricting it has never ended well for those that restrict it, regardless of reason.
No one talked about restrictions, just common sense. A smart person will always realize that smoking or vaping doesn’t make sense, that there are no positive aspects, that all the qualities they’d like to associate with are idiocy, to give something toxic a positive aspect. An evolved society must bury these trivia.
I mean, I’m not arguing in favor of vaping. I just think that you’re being optimistic about people choosing not to vape.
We just have to open our eyes and see things for what they are, ridiculous and damaging. Like cigarettes will stop being a status symbol when they’re no longer cool
I dont belive so. Pretty much all the big tobacco companies now also own vaping brands, which are advertised with large budgets - pretty similar to the 80’s/90’s where smoking companies would spend big money on billboards and magazine ads (look up “popular mechanics” from that time on google books and pay attention to the full page ads), but nowdays it’s targeted online ads and influeners.
Vaping is still “new” so its less regulated. Profit margins are high. There is at least one brand that offers a “subscription service” where you get delivered your favorite vaping refills by mail. They will advertise vapes to try to grow their market as long as they can, or as long as regulations don’t prevent it. Unfortunately even the goverment suggest to vaping as “healtier” alternative to smoking.
Source: one of my ex-employers for ecommerce solutions with a very flexible moral compass had one of the vaping brands as a customer.
This is very sad. In my area, it’s a declining phenomenon. I am convinced anyway that this reality will disappear relatively soon, in less than 20 years.
I don’t think it will disappear, because it’s intentionally designed to be addictive, making it hard to quit.
You’re not wrong. These dependencies will fall at a time when something else will be more important, maybe a global war, or maybe the expected climate change with the end of the world to follow, or who knows maybe aliens or asteroids, anything that distracts a capitalist system of viscid dependencies.
As a German living in Australia I can ensure you, smoking is still just as prevalent, it’s just people here being addicted to vapes instead of traditional cigarettes.
Sure, but those are almost certainly less harmful. Obviously still bad, but a step towards a lesser evil is a step in the right direction.
I remember when my parents would get them at $12 a carton. Dad quit when a carton of Marlboro was $21 or so.
I quit when the special blend was $3 a pack.
maybe it’s the overall economic situation that drives people to smoking as a “fuck it all, alter” gesture
Hardly. It may be less expensive than in other countries, but smoking is expensive in Germany. Hence smoking it going up is a sign that the effects of inflation and stagnating growth are limited. Not every problem is related to current economics.
The main reason for the recent development (and that was seen everywhere, not just in Germany) was the pandemic. Social isolation and drug use are connected.
Dim long-term prospects (climate change etc) might play a role, but I’d go with what the article says: Other countries implement a variety of measures to reduce smoking. Germany doesn’t. Hence it doesn’t go down. I mean, the stuff is addictive and profitable? Who in their right mind would assume it will go away if there’s no government action?
Which region are you referring to? Alter is dead and replaced in modern German with Wallah.
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“Die Renten sind sicher”. (pensions are safe)
Weird way to go about it, but it might work.
It’s a harmful activity that’s about to go extinct. Almost all smokers started because it’s “cool”, and now it’s no cooler for anyone.
You are detached. Its still cool for many groups of adolescents, at least here in Germany. Can’t comprehend it, but it’s real.
Probably just an American. It’s not cool to smoke here any more it’s cool to rip a fat vape. The amount of smokers has gone down but the amount of nicotine users is probably relatively unchanged.
Smoking went into decline long before vaping started to really take off in the US.
I dunno about Germany, if that’s what you meant.
You’re not wrong but the decline sharply excellerated after vaping took off. All the information is public.
I don’t smoke or vape for the record I Just believe in harm reduction for those who use drugs.
I mean it’s only going extinct because people are vaping instead, which is definitely healthier than smoking cigarettes but the nicotine addicts are still out there.
The judgement on vaping is still out. It’s not been around for long enough to know what health effects it’ll have in the long-term, but since you’re still inhaling things your lungs just aren’t made to inhale I expect that it will have a negative impact on health.
It’s been around for almost 20 years (first ecig came out in 2006) countless studies have been done that show it is safer then smoking. Your post is deceptive.
Is it? Because if you thought I meant “it’s better to just smoke” then you’ve misinterpreted me, I meant “neither is a good idea”. If that was ambiguous then I apologise.
I didnt take it as you saying its better to smoke i took it as you saying vaping is just as bad for your health as smoking which it is not.
Vaping is less harmful to your health than smoking. Its not an opinion. If you cant understand that no one can help you. So therefore, if you would use your brain for a minute here, than if you smoke cigarettes, and switch to vaping, that you are doing less harm to your body. Pretty simple idea… its actually a thing already, Its called “harm reduction”. Google it.
“Our advice on ecigarettes remains unchanged — vaping isn’t completely risk-free but is far less harmful than smoking tobacco. If you’ve switched to vaping and are finding it helpful to stop you smoking, and are not suffering any adverse effects, then carry on, don’t go back to smoking. Oct 25, 2019”, The Royal College of Physicians.
Google “royal college of physicians vaping study” for the full study.
Obviously if you dont smoke or vape dont start but if you smoke you should seriously consider switching to vaping if you cant quit entirely.
We’re not talking about 40-somethings who can’t get off of cigarettes, we’re talking about teenagers who are starting to smoke/vape because they think it’s cool.
And your attitude really could use some improvement, you’re coming across as a colossal, condescending dick.
Safer than smoking does not mean safe. And the tobacco industry has always published misleading studies.
Show me where I said it was safe?
I never said safe I said safer than smoking smart guy. Which it is.
The judgement on vaping is still out.
Not really. It’s not 100% yes, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s less harmful (as in: still bad bad but less). The reason that health advisory boards are hesitant to say that too loud it’s by no means clear that the increase of vaping is going to help society as a whole. Because vaping is unhealthy in its own but also because the addiction to nicotine that comes with it may end up turning people into smokers.
Source:
Are e-cigarettes less harmful than regular cigarettes? Yes—but that doesn’t mean e-cigarettes are safe. E-cigarette aerosol generally contains fewer toxic chemicals than the deadly mix of 7,000 chemicals in smoke from regular cigarettes.3
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/about-e-cigarettes.html
about to
In geological terms, sure. But for humans the century or so that it will take is quite long.
All smokers die eventually, but they’ll reproduce before this happens. I won’t count on extinction.
Vaping (as an alternative) exists, so it’s time for cigarettes to be made more expensive or more difficult to purchase.
I enjoy vaping. But I mix my own liquids, always without nicotine. But as much as i enjoy it, i dispise vapes. I think vaping is the major factor for increasing cigarette sales in the past two years. It is incredibly easy to get a vape stick just about everywhere. On top, many kiosk cashiers aren’t to serious about age verification. And it is tempting to get one. They smell nice, they taste good, they look stylish and are somehow “cool”. I’ll admit that if they weren’t such a ecological nightmare I’d probably try it aswell.
i mean, if some people wanna kill themselves sooner rather than later, id say let them lol
If they didn’t hurt other people in the process, I’d be a lot happier about it.
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Everyone who has to inhale the smoke. Especially kids in cars and at home when thr parents smoke.
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It’s currently being implemented for cars in Germany.
But afaik it’s not illegal for parents to smoke at home anywhere but Bhutan (which banned tobacco completely).
Society has to pay any healthcare stuff that’s caused by smoking. An earlier death and the resulting savings for the retirement fund is not enough to outweigh that.
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Society has to pay any healthcare stuff that’s caused by smoking. An earlier death and the resulting savings for the retirement fund is not enough to outweigh that.
Actually, it likely is. What you’re forgetting is that smoking also saves a lot of money in healthcare. After all non-smokers also age and get sick. The early death of smokers due to smoking related diseases prevents a lot of costs due to age related diseases. Afaik there’s no consensus about whether or not smoking saves money on healthcare. E.g. in this study smoking costs money with males, but saves money with females. If you count in pension then the additional healthcare costs are easily offset.
I am however fairly sure that smoking becomes expensive for society when you start to include productivity. Smokers tend to contribute less to society, though afaik it’s hard to calculate the effect of that because smoking is associated with lower education.
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