this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 66 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Friends and I love to dance to live music, and back in the day this was often in a local bar, where people were drinking and smoking. It was policy to remove our clothing outside to let it 'air out' rather than bring that smoke smell into the house. Of course we were all dancing HARD, in a smoke filled rooms. I wondered if I was in training to be a fire fighter, or what?

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 17 points 3 weeks ago

I remember going out at night then leaving my jeans on my bathroom floor, then in the morning the whole bathroom would smell like an ashtray. It was the worst!

Unfortunately it's still like that at my in-laws houses. Whenever they send our kids birthday or Christmas presents in the mail, we have to air out the packages for a few days.

[–] SonyJunkie@lemmy.world 58 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I remember when the smoking ban was introduced in the UK and the smell of smoke in pubs and clubs was replaced by the stench of body odour, I was actually wanting smoking to return as it was a more tolerable smell!!

Either I've got used to it now or people have learned to wash because I don't notice it anymore!

[–] purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 24 points 3 weeks ago

It was sick near me, the pubs now clean up properly.

[–] SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee 6 points 3 weeks ago

Did not miss having to dodge cigs at waist height on dance floors though.

[–] enemyofsun@lemmy.blahaj.zone 50 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It's still this way in the place where I live 😖

I hate nicotine so fucking much

[–] kn33@lemmy.world 37 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm so glad the USA had such a strong anti-smoking campaign when I was young.

[–] Ulvain@sh.itjust.works 39 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well let's just hope the tobacco industry doesn't get the good idea to cut Elon or Trump a check...

[–] SuperIce@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Vapes are way more popular with younger audiences though. I don't think tobacco companies care about getting more people hooked on cigarettes anymore, and they don't need government help to make vaping more popular.

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

autistic person here, I still don't get why people start. Like, I get that once you start you are physically addicted by the nicotine, but why even start? You don't look cool, you don't look tough, you only look like a dumbass who's gonna go broke buying cigarettes, die in their 60s, and spend a painful life while reaching it because you are always exhausted and out of breath

Like shit, do weed or LSD, at least you'll have a nice time, but cigarettes are just all downsides

[–] PhatInferno@midwest.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

Thats a new way of thinking about smoking tho, again back in its hayday it was seen as cool, ,tough, adult, badass, rebellious, etc which is part of why it got so popular.. along with this alot of kids grew up with smoker parents (or smoker friends) so they didnt see any problem with starting themselfs

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[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 46 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] introvertcatto@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 3 weeks ago

And 500 more cigarettes

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[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 40 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

One of the few things America has done unambiguously right is the strong anti-snoking campaigns. I think my mom is the only smoker I know anymore

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 32 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's so good that most of the og tobacco barons are dead and don't have much power, otherwise current admin would be introducing mandatory smoking right about now

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

I did say it was one of the few, and vaping did kinda take its place for a lot of young folk

[–] Jericho_Kane@lemmy.org 5 points 3 weeks ago

Smoging was almost gone here too like 10 or so years ago. Now it seems like almost everyone is back to cigarettes. I haven't been on a single date with a non smoker in probably 4 years. I know a guy who has a pretty stubborn g Form of cancer for years, but he would never stop smoking. Everyone is like: yeah it's unhealthy and all, but i'm cool like that. I get that and i don't care about your health, it's gross and you are a walking littering machine. There has to be better ways to be unhealthy

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[–] JPSound@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

And it made about as much sense as having a pissing section in a public pool.

I remember in the early-mid 90's going to pizza hut with my family to cash in one of those sweet book club free pizza stamps and the smoking section always being packed with other families. The other kids would be playing and having a fun time while all the adults enjoyed their refreshing delicious cigarettes while everyone ate. There was no real, "smoking or non-smoking" section. It's was a smoke filled restaurant with the option to sit shoulder to shoulder with someone smoking a cig or being a few feet away from said smokers.

[–] Rumbelows@lemmy.world 34 points 3 weeks ago

I remember going into cafés and things when I was a young man about 14 years old… You wouldn’t be able to see across a small room for the sheer fog bank of cigarette smoke.

We didn’t think anything of it

[–] RagnarokOnline@programming.dev 25 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Experienced this when I went to Barcelona a few years back. Lovely city, but stepping out into the street felt like stepping into a cigar bar.

[–] Ashiette@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

I don't mind it in the streets. I mean, as long as it's outside it's okay.

However, I remember a hotel in Spain where clients would be allowed to smoke indoors. It was hell.

[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I tie it to Germany. I remember getting off the plane the first thing I got hit with was the smell of cigarette smoke. And then wandering through parks and seeing kids smoking with their parents.

[–] tfw_no_toiletpaper@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

You should go to Cologne (or I bet any other major city), now it's weed smell everywhere 😂

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[–] FuryMaker@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago

A smoking section in a bar is like a peeing section in a pool.

[–] Blackout@fedia.io 23 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

You used to be able to light the rivers on fire too but Nixon helped ruin that.

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[–] strawberry@kbin.earth 21 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I wonder if our current world has a specific smell that people from the 80s would notice

[–] Nytarsha@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There's more methane in the atmosphere now. It probably smells like a fart.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

~~Methane needs 5-16PPM [PDF] to be detectable with human smell. Atmospheric Methane is at about 2ppm. So the vast majority of people would not notice a difference. ~~

nvm see below

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

methane doesn't have an odor, you linked to the data sheet of trichlorofluoromethane, a completely different molecule

The gas in your house is artificially made stinky so that people would notice leaks and blow their house up, which happened a lot back when the stinky chemicals weren't added and it was odorless

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[–] v_krishna@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Cannabis. At least most major cities in Europe/North America I find it really common now to openly smell cannabis all hours of the day. Combination of the strains being MUCH stronger and legalization. Even just 20 years back, of course in the Haight in SF or certain parts of NYC you'd smell it, or outside clubs/bars at night. But today I walk through Downtown SF at 830am and smell it every other block. Was in the design district in NYC a few weeks back and same deal.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's common, but absolutely not omnipresent the way cigarette smoke was. Even now it's quite distinctive and noticable, even if common.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

Helps that most people don't smoke a pack of joints every day.

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[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

People from the 40s would recognize the current smell of the world.

[–] TheFriar@lemm.ee 9 points 3 weeks ago

I feel like it’s probably the people from the ~1880s-1920s would know the smell of the world today

[–] PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 weeks ago

I'm hoping car exhaust takes that role.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Smoking rates were around 40% up through the 1970s. If you didn't smoke, you almost certainly got it second hand. Which implies that up through the smoking bans of the 1990s, everyone (except maybe some farmers and other outdoorsy types) were on a psychoactive drug 24/7 at least a little.

[–] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I mean sure, nicotine is technically a psychoactive drug. But so is caffeine and theobromine, so should we stop giving kids chocolate? Ban all coffee shops? Honestly not sure what your point is here. Everything is drugs, at least a little.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That basically is my point. It's eye opening for people who don't think about drugs that way.

[–] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 3 weeks ago

Ah okay i misunderstood. Regardless there were far more harmful things influencing everyone in the 70s than nicotine, like the thousands of toxic additives and carcinogens in secondhand smoke, or the lead in the paint and the gasoline.

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[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 3 weeks ago

It still smells of automotive exhaust. So they might have idea after all.

[–] Carl@lemm.ee 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Look at pictures of people in their 30s back in the 70s, and compare them to people in their 30s today. It's a massive difference, I hypothesize that it's the leaded gasoline and secondhand smoke that makes it although I'm not aware of any science to back that up.

[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

Probably a lot of it was first hand smoke.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

There is a lot of science to back it up, but all of it is on the opposite direction (those things cause aging), and we can't really tell if the aging we saw was caused by any of them or if there was something else going on.

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[–] jaschen@lemm.ee 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm old enough to remember the same things on airplanes.

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[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I remember when I was a teenager working in restaurants during high school I’d come home and shower afterwards. when I’d wash my hair it’d reek of cigarette smoke because I’d spent the last 5-9 hours standing in a giant plume of it.

I picked up smoking in college, I wonder if that was a factor. Thankfully I quit, eventually

[–] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 10 points 3 weeks ago

We visited friends in Serbia in summer. It took me back to this smoking world I had long forgotten. Inside smoking and non smoking tables in crowded cafes side by side. And the craziest part was the indoor playgrounds for kids with cafes adjacent or part of it where you could also smoke (and buy hard liquor). But you know what, my kid could play for less than 1,5€ an hour on a rainy day, even when I lived in Munich there were like 2 indoor playgrounds in a 50 km radius and they cost a fortune. They had them everywhere for dirt cheap. So, I'll happily get off my high horse.

[–] cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 weeks ago

And plane and train.

Reminds me of this ancient story I saw making the rounds on Reddit a few years ago: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2003/12/07/DJs-mummified-body-found-in-club-wall/72001070836281/

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