NY Times says cigarettes are making a comeback

Across New York City, as the pandemic waxes and wanes, a social activity that had seemed diminished, or replaced (with vapes, cannabis and education), seems to have reappeared. Have cigarettes, those filthy, cancer-causing things — and still the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — lost their taboo?

Are we actually seeing more smokers? Kat Frey, a 25-year-old copywriter who lives in Brooklyn, picked up the habit last year. “We’re having a very sexy and ethereal 1980s revival, and smoking is part of that,” she said. “A lot of people I know are posting pictures doing it. I’m doing it. It’s having its moment for sure.”

At the same time, cigarette smoking has been in a steady decline among adults in the United States for 30 years. David Hammond, a professor of public health at the University of Waterloo, said the drop has been fueled largely by young people.

“The decline in initiation among youth and young people is predominantly responsible for the overall decline in smoking in the population,” Dr. Hammond said. (Overall nicotine use has gone up, because of vaping.) Yet, in 2020, for the first time in two decades, cigarette sales increased.

Nigar Nargis, the scientific director of tobacco control research at the American Cancer Society, said that there was evidence of “a higher level of smoking.” “It’s probably not just young people, but there are higher sales, which indicates higher consumption,” Dr. Nargis said. While no one knows if young people also began smoking more, the logic goes like this: A high tide raises all boats.

Something to do together The obvious, Carville-ian, answer: It’s the pandemic, stupid.

Kiersyn Cocke, 30, began smoking as a teenager, but before 2020 she hadn’t smoked in three years. And then the coronavirus came calling. “For sure the pandemic — it was definitely stress,” she said. “And definitely something to do.”

Ms. Cocke lives in New York and is the brand director for a start-up. “We’ve all been remote and away from each other for like a year and a half,” she said, stepping outside Minnows, a bar near the border between Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, for a cigarette. What was “something to do” became “something to do together.”

“We know that during the pandemic, people have felt very socially isolated,” said Adam Leventhal, the director of the USC Institute for Addiction Science in Los Angeles. “Feeling isolated could lead to sadness. And it’s well known that people do use nicotine, including cigarettes, to self-medicate sadness and stress. That would certainly be at play here.”

Moreover, once many of the pandemic’s restraints lifted and people were allowed to go out to play, there was a move to indulge.

“When I’m out at a bar, it’s so fun to step out with my friends,” Ms. Frey said. “You’re making eyes with other people doing the same thing. Everyone is out together.” The outdoor nightlife easily lent itself to more smoking, as did the outdoor dining hutches, constructed outside many restaurants and bars in the city once the colder weather arrived.

“When I could be outside more, I started back up,” said Laquan Small, a 32-year-old stylist in New York, who reduced his smoking during the pandemic’s first stages. “I was drinking in parks and out where other people were smoking. It was a habit to pick back up on.”

A third, darker pandemic effect was a kind of fatalism, an après moi le déluge attitude festered in months of loneliness, as well as constant news of death and disease.

“We all have this flamboyant death wish, if you will,” said Ryan Matera, a 25-year-old agent’s assistant in Los Angeles. “We just look to the north and see fires, and the ground shakes beneath us, and they tell us the waters are rising. So we ask, ‘What the hell is the difference?’”

Ms. Rower, the sculptor, felt something similar on the East Coast. “I think everyone was like, ‘What’s the point?’” she said.

‘It’s extremely dumb’ But these young people know the dangers of smoking, right? In 2019 the C.D.C. reported that cigarette smoking among American adults had hit an all-time low, of 13.7 percent, in 2018. Education does not seem to be the issue.

Nathan Miller, a 24-year-old waiter and designer in New York, laughed at his own indifference. “It’s really funny,” he said. He takes PrEP, a medication to prevent H.I.V. infection, and when he was looking into it, he noticed that it can decrease bone density of the spine by about 1 percent. “I left the doctor’s office unsure, and I immediately lit a cigarette, and laughed,” he said. “Because here I am, consuming this absolute poison. I definitely had double standards.”

Rachel Yara, a 23-year-old student in Boston, smokes despite having been born with a small hole in her lung. “It’s extremely dumb,” she said. “If I have a cold, I have asthma attacks. And it’s absolutely made worse by this.”

That’s not all, though. “Part of it is that it almost feels like rejection of wellness culture, which is very stupid,” she said. It feels good, she said, to reject all that.

“I don’t have the time or money to go to Whole Foods and do yoga and eat bowls,” she said. “I will never eat a bowl. I’m just sitting here smoking my cigs and forget it.”

In a world of wellness, cigarettes offer a solid rebellion, especially with so few options. Cannabis, once the king of counterculture, is now a party to wellness. It’s not only legal in many states, but also that thing your nerdy uncle uses to help him sleep.

“Weed is positioned as medicine now,” Ms. Frey said. “Cigarettes are this bad, cheeky thing.”

‘Don’t have a USB charger in your mouth’ To speak about smoking without including vaping is to talk about TV without including streaming, especially given that a recent Gallup poll reported that 17 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 vape; the C.D.C. has reported that only 8 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 smoke.

To enter into this discussion is to jump into a dispute in health care, between those who believe that vapes are a proven tool to help smokers quit and those who believe they are the tobacco industry’s evolution in getting new generations addicted to nicotine. (They can both be right, by the way.)

For most young smokers, vapes exist in somewhat of a dance, whether they be Juuls, Myle disposable pods or single-use e-cigarettes like Puff Bars. Many tried e-cigarettes in their teens, before fragrant flavors were outlawed in many states, and many more leapt onto the Juul trend a few years ago. Of the smokers I spoke to (about 20), most use vapes in tandem with smoking cigarettes, though some will not go near vapes.

“If you’re going to be addicted to something, use cigarettes,” Ms. Frey said. “Don’t have a USB charger in your mouth. It looks so lame.” Many young smokers supplement with vapes, particularly Juuls, as a means to satisfy their nicotine cravings when a cigarette is not available.

At the same time, a number of people interviewed for this article expressed irritation with the insidiousness of e-cigarettes: Their relative camouflage, compared with traditional cigarettes, means users can, and often do, hit it all the time. The nicotine stream from an e-cigarette becomes like the internet itself: constant, unbreakable and yearning for their attention.

“I was like, ‘I am just consuming way too much nicotine,’” said Ms. Yara, who found herself inhaling more than one Juul pod a day, the equivalent nicotine of a pack of cigarettes. “I hated how if I couldn’t find a vape for a second, I could not do schoolwork.” Ms. Yara returned to cigarettes as a means of decreasing her vape use.

So did Emile Osborne, a 22-year-old graphic designer. “I switched back to cigarettes because I thought it would be healthier than Juuling,” he said. “Cigarettes seem like a known evil, whereas vaping you don’t know the side effects at all. I can go out for a cig a few times a day. It’s a break from what I’m doing. That’s my nicotine fix for the day.”

This method does not seem realistic to Ken Warner, an emeritus dean of public health at the University of Michigan, who sees vapes as a powerful weapon in public health’s war on smoking. “If they’re really addicted to nicotine, two to four cigarettes a day would be most unlikely to satisfy a true physical addiction,” he said.

‘It is a joy to be contemporarily atypical’ While some smokers attest to choosing cigs over vapes for health reasons, others say that the choice is a much more classic one, loath as they may be to admit it: It looks and feels cool.

“It’s just a cool thing,” Ms. Frey said. “It sounds lame to say that. I think of hot guys that I’m into, and they’re like, ‘I’m going to step out and have a cigarette.’ It’s kind of sophisticated. Grunge sophisticated.”

And of course, part of that is your online image. “People are posting outside of a cool place, smoking with their friend, outside of cool dive bars,” Ms. Frey said. For her, like many of her generation, this aspect sounds familiar: “Smoking is part of being seen, and I think people want to be seen right now.”

For Fernanda Amis, 25, a waitress and actress who took up smoking at N.Y.U., it’s also a family affair. Her father, the writer Martin Amis, a lifelong smoker often photographed with a cigarette, has said they are one of his favorite things.

“Beautiful people do it, really talented people do it,” said Ms. Amis, who lives on the Lower East Side. “It goes with things that I admire.” In fact, back in college, she wrote a little manifesto about smoking titled “Notes of a Neo-smoker,” which included missives like: “Smoking is the epitome of masochism,” and “It is a joy to be contemporarily atypical.”

‘I don’t like that it’s so embedded in my life’ If all of this sounds desperately retrograde, it may not be permanent. In 2020, Monitoring the Future, a pre-eminent study on youth smoking since 1975, recorded the first uptick in years. In mid-December, it released its newest findings: Cigarette use was down in every school grade.

At the same time, smoking, in whichever form it takes, seems irrepressible. Despite the science, or the times, it’s one of those things, like bluejeans, that has always been tinged with a sense of cool, and will always symbolize renegade urges in some form.

“It’s a little thing that you’re always looking forward to,” said Kitty Luo, 21, a student at the University of Chicago. But that is also what makes her want to kick the habit: “I realize my life moves forward with, ‘When is the next smoke going to be?’ I don’t like that it’s so embedded in my life.”

And for many of those currently under the spell, there is consistent hope it may soon wear off. Lula Hyers, 24, a photographer and born-and-bred New Yorker, said she would like to stop smoking cigarettes. “It’s really expensive,” she said. “They’re really evil corporations. I would like to live a healthier lifestyle than I do right now. But there’s a lot of things to worry about.”

And for now, cigarettes aren’t one of them.

Yaaay, finally! (I ain't reading all of that)

In my own personal experience, the pandemic has played the biggest role in people smoking again. Stuck at home, feeling nihilistic because of Covid, I know a number of people who just said "fuck it, I'm smoking."

And of course when you're at home all day nobody knows you're smoking, where they would if you were at a workplace.

We are so terrified of covid getting into our lungs, but we aren't afraid of hundreds of toxins in cigarettes doing the same! What an irony of life.

[quote]Rachel Yara, a 23-year-old student in Boston, smokes despite having been born with a small hole in her lung. “It’s extremely dumb,” she said. “If I have a cold, I have asthma attacks. And it’s absolutely made worse by this.” That’s not all, though. “Part of it is that it almost feels like rejection of wellness culture, which is very stupid,” she said. It feels good, she said, to reject all that.

This is the equivalent of idiots who think they’re “owning the libs” by running around maskless and unvaccinated only to end up dying. Oh well. Keep on showing us.

This happened with my generation in the 90s. So many of us smoked back then, but eventually quit when we hit our 30s.

Good! A soon to be realized future without the 20 somethings who will possibly never be 40 somethings.

R11 Are you that brain washed? While smoking can give you cancer does effects don’t happen for years. No one is dying in their 40/ because they smoked in their 20s. If they did we would have a lot less 40 year olds out there.

It’s still stupid and tacky.

R10, the 90s was still a part of smoking culture, albeit is was starting to change. In subsequent decades the message that smoking kills was definitely hammered home.

This generation I sort of pity. There are no more taboos, SM dominates and everything is political correct and gray. This no real fun to be had. I guess this is bit of an attempt at a rebellion. It sucks getting older, but I’m glad I was young in the 90s and not now.

Morons.

This article was clearly sponsored by big tobacco.

[R12] Okay Marcus Welby.

I had to Google Marcus Welby. JFC that's a dinosaur of a reference!

Gen Z just don't give a fuuck. Smoking is lame, but I do appreciate their pushback against cringy Millennial culture.

It never left

Gen X here and we smoked like chimneys. Then around the early-mid 2000s we realized we weren't going to live forever and a great many of us quit. Maybe that will happen with Gen Z too, when they're a little older

Gen Z is idiotic. It's too bad they don't embrace things like fun and sex with the same gusto.

The Times and New York Magazine do these sorts of articles all the time.

They find something that isn't really a trend and decide to make it one because reading about it--and the subsequent outrage--get them lots of clicks.

They find a handful of people who are doing something and, without any further evidence, declare that is a trend.

Here, you see a handful of people in Bushwick--Hipster Central--and about four other people --who admit to smoking.

Hardly a trend.

Lots of people play around with smoking when they are in their 20s but never really make it a habit--they'll have a cigarette outside a bar as a way to be social but don't even go through a pack a year.

[It's actually a meme of sorts in the media industry, people refer to these sorts of made-up trend stories as "We're Eating More Cheese!"]

[quote]according to the NY Times

Never in the history of the NYT have these words meant so little.

It never stopped being popular among the uneducated & poor, Asians & Southeast Asians, and young hipsters. But it remains highly addictive, the most destructive thing you can do for your health, and a straight line to poor quality of life after about 65.

Not that I am for it but it makes sense. Probably the only tabu left...pot at this point is been there/done that and vaping is so 2016.

Now that I've quit for almost 5 years it makes a comeback? Fantastic!

Hm, I thought Gen Z was against pollution?

Gen X was the last smoking generation. It was still considered relatively "edgy" to do it, especially as a teen. Millenials dropped it. We'll see if the Z-ers pick it up again or if this was just some alarmist outrage bait because there are no other stories. I suspect irs the latter.

r12 Nat King Cole died of lung cancer at age 45.

I guess I understand the ritualistic aspect of it, sneaking away from a larger group makes one feel part of the in-crowd, like doing bumps in a bar bathroom. But at least coke and weed make you feel something; what do people get from cigarettes? I have never understood. Are they supposed to calm/relax you? Or does the nicotine dependency start more or less immediately and you're just trying to drown out negative effects of nicotine withdrawal?

The world is obviously ending, why give a shit about the future?

I smoked in my 20s. I also drank frequently and did a lot of blow.

Haven't done any of the three in ten years. But I feel they're their own "dark triad" -- when I drank, I needed a boost, so I'd do some lines. And nothing made me crave cigarettes like blow. If I had a decent amount of coke I could drink all night long without getting fall-down drunk, and chain smoke two packs of cigarettes.

Just smoking for the sake of smoking has no appeal to me, just like doing blow without alcohol seems unappealing now: I need a downer to take the edge off.

I had fun in my 20s, but made a lot of dumb decisions. I'm happy that that period of my life is behind me.

R31 seriously, like why care about nutrition and fitness at at all if you take in all these toxins by choice?

Smoking was the one thing in life I was great at. I was once a professional smoker. It was my everything. I stopped over 10 years ago and still miss it at times.

[quote]”We’re having a very sexy and ethereal 1980s revival”

Where do they find these fucking idiots?

R31 as an ex smoker, yes it's relaxing, or at least it seems that way. Though that doesnt really start being true till the psychological addiction kicks in which is hardly immediate. Before that, honestly it's about looking cool. Or some people, like me, genuinely like doing it from the get go, it just felt natural for me. Glad I quit though, health is an issue but the money you end up dishing out to those piece of shit companies after decades of smoking? That was probably as big an issue if not bigger than the health one and its what got me to quit.

r35 I haven't smoked in 10+ years but still have an occasional smoking dream

I quit back in 1965.

R30 not op but that tends to be the exception. Smoking related lung cancer usually kicks in a decade or 2 later.

Disgusting

Oooh look at that beacon of relevance NY Times at it again!

Also smoking cigarettes in NYC? Might as well start a coke habit, it would be cheaper.

[quote]a professional smoker

R35, I use the same term. I tell people I became a professional smoker around age 14 (not proud of that at all).

Currently, 5 years "clean."

[quote]Also smoking cigarettes in NYC? Might as well start a coke habit, it would be cheaper.

Currently $14 a pack, student would have to share a pack.

r45 sharing a pack of smokes belongs in the "Let's be film noir" thread.

Who cares? Gen Z has no future. Hell, anyone younger than a Boomer is in for tough times. Smoke away!

R9 Why are people like this? It drives me insane!

I'm the oldest of millennial. I remember smoking to rebel against my parents and to be cool. To be honest, the first few cigs when I learned to inhale made me nauseas and yet I kept going. I've never loved cigarettes and they have been easy for me to take or leave. I much prefer weed to cigs, alcohol or blow. However, if my stress level reaches a level 10 or beyond due usually to finances or something guy related, all I want of God's green earth is fucking cigarette. In my early 30's I would go through phases where I would smoke until the crisis passed and then I lost the urge. Now I have no urge. I've done vapes both nicotine and cannibis. They feel toxic to me, like you are better off with a cig. I've read the oil from vapes coat your lungs and they don't clean themselves are efficiently as when you quite cigs. Your lungs get rid of all the gunk. I wouldn't fuck with vapes.

[quote]This article was clearly sponsored by big tobacco.

I hope someone writes another article outlining the contracts big tobacco made with "influencers" to addict another generation to their poison.

I don't understand how they can afford to buy cigarettes with all their college loan debt.

I feel bad for the people who started smoking in their teens before they had the chance to be fully educated about the evils of cigarettes. But who the fuck starts smoking in their 20s? If you want something to do, buy a guitar or a keyboard. It won't kill you, and it will make you more interesting at parties.

Stupid choice, but anti-smoking Nazis are even worse so I say anything that will make their heads explode is good by me.

It never went away in the gay community.

The NYT is reaching Buzzfeed levels with this new investigative journalism.

[QUOTE] Also smoking cigarettes in NYC? Might as well start a coke habit, it would be cheaper.

Oh and it's crazy. Police are stopping vehicles on the GWB, the Holland, going through the entire vehicle looking for contraband packs.

The next uncool thing will be going to the gym.

[QUOTE] I smoked in my 20s. I also drank frequently and did a lot of blow.

Well that's every Hollywood celeb.

Gen Z want to be Gen X so bad. Not that I blame them exactly. We are the coolest and most exclusive of all gens. We also owned the 90's, THE most influential decade of all time.

A trend for the East coast only, as anyone in LA would freak if you lit up in front of them.

… and later they’d ask if they could bum one.

Cigarette smoking is for the neurotics of the east coast

[quote] I’m glad I was young in the 90s and not now.

No you don’t. If you could be 22 again in today’s world, you would do it in a minute

Gen X too. My parents would have beat my ass, if I smoked. My mom hated it because my grandparents were smokers. My dad hated it due to sinus issues.

My uncle who is almost 72, still smokes like a chimney. He has been (not kidding) smoking since he was 12.

There is a picture of him in black and white sitting in a hospital bed smoking after getting his tonsils removed.

r62 22 is fun, but once is enough, and the 90's was a much better venue for it.

r50 NYT in cahoots with BIG T!

Tried to warn you bitches

[quote] ... stepping outside Minnows, a bar near the border between Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn

God forbid they should get the neighborhood off by even a few inches and outrage the hipsters!

R58 I'm not sure what's sadder, Zoomers who want to be sad copies of their 50 year old parents or 50 year olds who still care about being cool

[quote]Gen Z want to be Gen X so bad. Not that I blame them exactly. We are the coolest and most exclusive of all gens. We also owned the 90's, THE most influential decade of all time.

I'm really surprised how uptight millennials turned out. Maybe that's their rebellion against Gen X? They've produced no lasting cultural icons. And boomers are boomers. So of course zoomers are left with no choice but to try and emulate Gen Xers.

Britney Spears is the biggest cultural icon of Millennials. It's really sad.

Maybe Gen X shoulda worried more about their awful politicians their generation is producing instead of music and pop culture icons. But hey you got three supreme court justices and Ron DeSantis, you must be proud I'm sure

There are good and bad politicians in every generation. Aaron Schock and Madison Cawthorn are both Millennials.

Well Gen X's icon went and killed himself. All the Gen X rockstars were in a competition to see who could be the most depressed. They would talk about their depressive and suicidal thoughts in their lyrics and interviews. Then one day, the prettiest one said "hold my beer" and he showed the others that he wasn't kidding when he shot himself. It was quite the departure from the 80s rock stars who were always singing about sex and drugs.

It's ironic that the boomers and the millennials are always in conflict, because they share the motivation for social justice. The boomers considered it a badge of honor to be arrested for protesting. The millennials are forcing people to apologize for being sexist, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic. Meanwhile, Generation X, just looks up from their phones and says "whatever..."

[quote]The millennials are forcing people to apologize for being sexist, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic.

They are fascist ideologues, dear. That's not real social justice.

Gen X had the Boomers' number long ago, and Millennials' too.

Sigh. Each new generation makes the same mistakes as the previous generations. Wash, rinse, repeat. They act as if there aren't a hundred thousand examples of people who took the wrong path and paid heavily for it. Some of them think they will be the exception.

We often learn the hard way, but you can learn a lot from observing other people's mistakes without having to pay the price yourself. My grandfather died from emphysema because of his nicotine addiction. My aunt, lifelong smoker and a retired nurse (the irony), suffers from severe health problems. Brief moments of relaxation from daily cigarette use aren't worth it.

If you want to expend any energy reasoning with beginning smokers (or other addicts), don't bother talking about cancer and their health. Appeal to their vanity. Unless they intend to die young, smoking (like drinking and tanning) is a great way to look old way before your time. No amount of plastic surgery can erase the years convincingly.

[quote]Britney Spears is the biggest cultural icon of Millennials. It's really sad.

Truly embarrassing.

I imagine sniffing model airplane glue skyrocketed as well.

The glamour never ends...

I know I know they are terrible and smelly and teeth yellowing and lung killing but damn men so sexy smoking one.

On the topic of millennial cultural icons (or lack thereof), I think it will be even worse for zoomers given the new disposable nature of entertainment and the youtubisation of celebrity. No hollowed theaters to worship these people. It's over.

I will never forget in the earlier 2000s when Michael Bloomberg outlawed smoking in NYC bars.

You would thought from the histrionic outrage on Datalounge that he declared all firstborn sons must be slaughtered. And yet everyone got used to it.

That cunt Jane Wyman smoked like a motherfucker and lived to ninteywhatever

As did Winston Churchill. Fat fuck smoked cigars every day to his nineties.

One of my great-grandmothers smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes to the day she died of natural causes at age 91.

boring fucked up NYT article.

if you are in your twenties, smoking was ALWAYS cool. across all generations

[quote]One of my great-grandmothers smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes to the day she died of natural causes at age 91.

You'll be shocked at how many smokers in the 80s you'll see in Italy.