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Smoking around the world
- andrenotgiant 8y agoWhat is going on in Chile?
- zjaffee 8y agoIt's really interesting, they have a much higher percentage of people who smoke, but the number of cigarettes they smoke a day is far less than even in the united states.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoSee also: greece and serbia.
- bunderbunder 8y agoObligatory bikeshedding: It's really frustrating that, in the first two visualizations, whose only difference is that one shows data for women, and the other shows data for men, they chose to use two different color scales. It makes it difficult to compare between the two. For example, if you weren't paying close attention to the scales, you might easily get the impression that a greater proportion of women than men smoke in France and Chile.
- pzone 8y agoThere are all kinds of quirks and questionable decisions in this presentation. It's good data but I found myself doing a double take every other chart.
- mirimir 8y agoYeah, at some point I learned to scale all related charts the same. Otherwise, confusion is too likely.
- whamlastxmas 8y agoI read your comment, looked at the link, and made the same mistake before realizing what you had just said.
- tjr225 8y agoIsn't it incredible how much the smoking culture of America has shifted over time? If only the forces who put the anti-smoking effort into motion could come together and work towards making renewable energy, alternative commuting methods, or universal healthcare acceptable ideas in this country. I used to smoke a pack a day and I'm glad I don't anymore.
- mertd 8y agoI wonder how anti-smoking campaign would have played out today when a good chunk of population can't be convinced that vaccines are a good thing.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI haven’t seen any numbers, but I would have thought tiny minority would be more accurate?
- geomark 8y agoIn some areas the percentage of unvaccinated is quite high. See this map of anti-vaxxers by county http://rpubs.com/markdg/AntivaxxerHotspots http://rpubs.com/markdg/AntivaxxerHotspots It uses the Personal Belief Exemption for school children as a proxy for the general population of anti-vaxxers. So arguably a bit inaccurate.
- MarkusAllen 8y agoNevada, California - more than 20% opt out. Fascinating. I would love to see hotspots of places where people have no religion - not even atheist... just none.
- nigifabio 8y agoHere a map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irrelig...
- mc32 8y agoWhat's odd about this is that women in "richer" countries smoke more on average than women in developing nations, but conversely, when it comes to men, men in developing nations smoke more on average than men in developed countries...
- dyarosla 8y agoThis could be explained by women in developing nations simply having the least amount of money out of all of these groups and not be able to afford it- otherwise I could imagine women in developing nations would also smoke more than women in developed nations.
- in_cahoots 8y agoThere might also be more of a social stigma against women smoking. In the West smoking amongst women was portrayed as dangerous and sexy, while for men it was just part of a hard day’s work. That sort of marketing would translate better for men than for women in more traditional cultures.
- thorin 8y agoI the UK I've always though smoking always thought smoking was slightly more popular with young women. I always put this down to it seeming "cool" or "rebellious" (to them). It also has a reputation as an appetite suppressant which is more women seem to care more about. I literally only know one or two people here in the provinces that smoke, but there were more in London. There were a good few more when I was at university (20 years ago) but most of those carried smokes because they smoked weed too...
- userbinator 8y agoWould be interesting to see the same data for vaping.
- paxy 8y agoI have anecdotally observed much higher rates of smoking among friends and on the streets in South Asia (mainly India) vs. USA, but interestingly the data seems to indicate the opposite.
- illuminati1911 8y agoYeah. I have also often heard westeners saying that "people in China(or Asia) smoke so much!" etc. which is probably true if we are dealing with absolute numbers. When looking at the relative numbers however, there are more smokers in France than in China and smokers in Sweden consume more cigarettes each day. Maybe smoking in public is more common in China/Asia?
- paulkon 8y agoIndia has 4 times more people than USA and much greater density. Odds are greater that people around you will be smoking.
- sateesh 8y agoA few points about smoking in India: * Ban on smoking in public places, streets is not strictly followed at all * Cigarettes are available in every nook and cranny. There is hardly a road side tea shop that doesn't sell cigarettes * Cigarette sticks can be bought (as against buying a entire pack), more so in road side tea shops
- elorant 8y agoI quit the damn thing some 13 years ago and I've never looked back since. Best decision I've ever made. Earned back my life, I'm in my mid forties and my physical endurance is way better than what it was in my twenties. The thing that most smokers don't realize is that smoking is like taking heroin. You're addicted to a substance that's slowly and silently killing you. Just a couple of years ago I lost a very good friend of mine from lung cancer. He was smoking three packs a day and the cancer ended him in less than six months. To anyone reading this as a smoker. Quit the fucking thing. You won't miss it and there are ways to quit that aren't as harsh as cold turkey. Just seek medical advice and move on.
- ams6110 8y agoMy dad was a smoker most of his life. He quit in his 50s. Years later I asked him if he missed it, and his answer was "every single day."
- sergers 8y agoI have some coworkers who successfully quit, but started smoking again cause they simply enjoyed it. They hardly drank(liquor) and it was their ownly vice, knowing it's still bad for them but could be doing worse.
- Scarblac 8y ago> I have some coworkers who successfully quit, but started smoking again cause they simply enjoyed it. How is that different from failing to quit?
- eadmund 8y agoI love tobacco. It smells wonderful (no, not cigarettes: tobacco itself, as anyone who's ever smelt pipe smoke will confirm). It tastes delicious (albeit not as good as it smells). It feels wonderful. It even cuts down on appetite, which is a plus in this day and age! I quit smoking for love, but I miss it every time I think of it. Nonsmokers have no idea what they're missing. It's sheer bliss. The sooner we can figure out how to have noncarcinogenic smoke, the better.
- c3534l 8y agoWhy on Earth did they shade the percent of men smoking darker than the women? That means in countries where about the same proportion of women as men smoke, which is most countries, the female map is colored as having a higher percentage than men because they made the key identical minus 10%. This makes me irrationally angry.
- nubbins 8y agoI was trying to figure out why countries had more women smoking than men which I’ve never observed anywhere, with regards to smoking or really any dangerous habit.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pmalynin 8y agoActually, as some one who grew up in Ukraine I did see somewhere that there, teenagers had more girls smoking that boys.
- wyldfire 8y agoYeah, they normalized the color range to the data within each set instead of among both sets. I agree, it's confusing.
- seandougall 8y agoSame here — I didn’t even notice what was going on until I saw the men vs women plot with almost everything above the y = x line. Also the “number of daily smokers” plot makes no sense in absolute terms, and really seems like it ought to be per capita. Lots of questionable data viz here, plus some graphs clearly copied and pasted from elsewhere.
- dghughes 8y agoThe worst part is lung diseases often take decades to appear. People who quit smoking after doing it for a few decades may be hit with COPD late in life just when they can least afford it. Compounding other health problems they may already have. COPD: "Long-term exposure to lung irritants that damage the lungs and the airways usually is the cause of COPD." - nhlbi.nih.gov I worry about the vaping trend I think there is going to be a massive amount of people diagnosed with COPD in 30 or 40 years.
- duxup 8y agoAlways hard to know with science in the news but I thought that there was some good science that showed that even quitting late in life significantly reduced the risk of smoking related illnesses compared to those who did not stop. I thought that was quite interesting that even after say 30 years you could change the odds fairly dramatically.
- dghughes 8y agoI've seen that too something like "after an hour your blood pressure returns to normal. After a few days you can breathe easier..." It's always good to quit but as with genetics people are different. A few rare cases where a person smokes until their 90s and never seems to be affected. But I'd say most people who smoke are not so lucky. Sure maybe in the short term and yes it's great for the ex-smoker and the people around them but late in life illnesses pile up and COPD is a big risk. My dad smoked but quit around age 30 now he has two lung diseases: COPD and IPF. It's possible one or both are related to his work as an oiler on a ship. He was always around fumes, dust, paint, exhaust but his smoking probably had a lasting effect too.
- jageen 8y agoIn India they show vary serious warning message with photo on each cigarette box , but I did not see the same think in Japan (I am not sure about other countries)
- ahansen 8y agoThere are massive warnings on the packs in New Zealand. I believe they can't use any branding at all on the packs in Australia.
- squiggleblaz 8y agoThey can include the brand name in Australia, but the format is precisely specified including valid fonts and sizes. Names are also regulated so they can't imply a health claim (like afaik "Mild"). It would be instructive to do an image search for "Australian cigarette packaging" if you want to see exactly what they look like. I gather a lot of smokers like to use boxes to put their cigarette boxes in so they don't have to see them, but I don't know any smokers so that's just hearsay.
- rmm 8y agoAs an Aussie smoker with friends who also smoke, the packaging makes absolutely no difference to us. It was an oddity when it happened, everyone spent time comparing which photos were the most disgusting and now its just background. Also people buy smokes they like the taste of, the packaging/brand had/has no effect on what people buy.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoBut is that not simply the perspective of someone who has already smoked for a number of years, and who doesn't really care about the presentation? As far as I understood, the point was to make the packaging less enticing to potential new customers?
- KozmoNau7 8y agoI'd love to see plain packaging for everything. Sell your products on their actual merits, not just on whatever flashy colors you put on the packaging that gets discarded anyway.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoOne of the few things I despised about traveling in Europe was people smoking inside like it was the 70's. Almost lost it over a couple puffing away in the dairy section of the super market, managed to keep my mouth shut. Shame because I otherwise loved my time there.
- fyfy18 8y agoWas it in the 70s you went? All European countries now have indoor smoking bans, mostly for a decade or more. Some countries still let you smoke in bars and restaurants, but nowhere allows you to smoke inside a supermarket.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoWas ten years ago in Portugal, and remember a table full of people smoking next to us in an indoor cafe in Germany, windows closed in the winter.
- Kiro 8y agoYou're spreading disinformation.
- kbart 8y agoFirst of all, as other comments have mentioned it's really not a common sight in Europe. Actually, I haven't seen anybody smoking inside a supermarket during my whole life living in Europe (>30 years) and traveling there extensively. Secondly, even if it were common, your indignation seems strange as you come to a different culture and judge people according to your customs. Do you honestly believe that the whole continent should suddenly start behaving differently just because you went traveling there?
- atlasunshrugged 8y agoAgreed, although my time here in Europe has been much more brief (moved to Berlin in 2017 then Estonia 2018) I've never seen anyone smoking in a supermarket or nearly anywhere else inside in Europe with the exception of Berlin bars which are egregious offenders but I would consider an anomaly in W. EU at least
- duxup 8y agoI forgot where I heard it but there was a discussion on the radio that indicated that smoking in the US was for a long time was done more by the wealthy... and then the trend shifted to the wealthy quitting and the poor smoking more. There was also a lot of questions regarding nicotine being used to cope with other issues since nicotine is pretty effective.
- paulie_a 8y agoWhile I quit daily smoking years ago I will never give up cigars. Even my doctor has zero issues with that. According to the CDC there is essentially no risk even smoking up to five a day. I am definitely substantially lower than that though.
- olalonde 8y agoYou don't inhale when smoking cigars right?
- flukus 8y ago> According to the CDC there is essentially no risk even smoking up to five a day No risk or unknown risks? Last I looked into it there was no research on the health effects of smoking < 5 cigarettes a day either.
- dageshi 8y agoThere are some risks in terms of your mouth/lips. Cigars are a lot less harmful because it's customary not to inhale them, you can obviously but the vast majority of cigar smokers don't. They also appear to be far less addictive than cigarettes, personally I would say they aren't addictive at all, during the winter in the UK I don't smoke any for 3-4 months, during the summer I only smoke a couple a week.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIs that right that the USA has fewer smokers than New Zealand and Australia? New Zealand and Australia have made massive efforts to reduce their rates of smokers. They both have plain packaging, tobacco products aren't allowed to be visibly on sale (in New Zealand, they won't even tell you what they have, you have to guess and hope they have it in stock). They also have the most expensive tobacco in the world. A 25 pack of Marlboros will set you back AU$32 (US$23). That doesn't seem right that the USA, which has in general put a lot less restrictions on tobacco and has much cheaper tobacco, has a lower incidence of smokers than Australia or New Zealand. Anecdotally, most daily smokers I know aren't smoking 20 a day either.
- e40 8y agoA 25 pack of Marlboros will set you back AU$32 (US$23). I don't smoke, but a pack in CA is, according to DDG, US$8. For comparison, 25 x US$8 = US$200.
- ddeck 8y agoAccording to Wikipedia, it was 17.2% in the US compared with 14.9% in Australia in 2015 [1]. This was based on WHO data published in 2016. According to the same article, the rate had dropped to under 13% in Australia in 2016. The CDC put the US 2016 rate at 15.5% [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_tobacco_consumption https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_tobacco_consum... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...
- sergers 8y agoPrice per pack or as the chart outlines 25 cigs, seems to be wrong for Canada. A single pack can cost 11$ CAD to 15.50$ CAD, with cartons costing ~100$ or higher. Where as in the US you can find 5-8$ pack, and cartons as low as $30$ USD. The chart shows Canada and USA in the same price/color category. Canada has been taxing more, and price keeps going up to curb smoking. Currently trying to implement basic plain packaging. I would say alot of teens are skipping cigs and straight to vaping. Where as many adults are quiting cigs or switching to vaping. I also know of people who increased cannabis use to cut down/stop smoking cigs. Someone else noted the effectiveness of nicotine... Which is misunderstood. I am someone who use to smoke a pack a day, to vaping for oral fixation. My nicotine intake increased with vaping, but the satisfaction was not the same. The satisfaction in cigs comes from mix in nicotine and increase in carbon monoxide in blood stream mainly. If anyone is trying to quit, suggest reading: Alan Carr - easy way to quit smoking. Has helped many people including myself in understanding the sensations and what little control it has over you really.
- cstrat 8y agoI wonder why in Australia, where cigarettes cost the most, the 'taxes as a share of price' is also not the highest on the map. The tobacco companies just charging more and blaming the tax... Turkey, France, Chile, Finland have tax contribution of over 80% !!
- point78 8y agoVery disappointed in EU here! Such a disgusting habit that kills and leads to large quality of life loss later in life. Needs to be severely reduced or banned altogether. Seeing 15 year olds smoke is a huge societal failure.
- staz 8y agoMost countries in the EU are taking steps to combat this and the number of smokers is steadily diminishing, even if too slowly. I'm more worried about the non smoker countries which the tobacco companies are seeing as new territories to conquer. John Oliver did a good segment about that two years ago https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=239 https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=239
- 2sk21 8y agoI agree - considering that Europeans are generally on a positive track for health related statistics, it always surprises me to see how much more common smoking is there. Even in Sweden which has an image of being a healthy country, I have seen many more people smoking than in the US.
- Kurtz79 8y agoIt is probably an issue with in-depth set culture, there is definitely less stigma here than in the US, although not for the goverments not trying. In most EU countries, anti-smoking campaigns are frequent, packs must show huge labels with death warnings, advertising is illegal, as well as smoking in public enclosed spaces. Still, the trend is downward in all countries.
- chosenbreed 8y ago> Very disappointed in EU here! Such a disgusting habit that kills and leads to large quality of life loss later in life I agree in part but the libertarian in me thinks that people should be free to do what they want to their bodies provided it is not at the expense of society as a whole. For example banning smoking in offices, public buildings, spaces, etc is a good thing. Banning people from smoking in their own garden is not. > Seeing 15 year olds smoke is a huge societal failure. Yes and no. General trends suggest they are smoking less and drinking less alcohol compared to previous generations. It probably just stands out more relative to the general population. Alas, youth is lost on the young :-)
- matonias 8y agoWhat is up with the daily cigarette consumption in Suriname? 108 cigs a day can't be a normal average right?
- alkonaut 8y agoWhat's going on in Indonesia? Men are increasingly smoking like chimneys, while the rest of the world is more or less on the same downward trend. It only being men also suggests it isn't a suddent economic change like lifting tobacco taxes. Some cultural change suddenly made it cool for only men to smoke (again). Is Mad Men running on every channel?
- rmm 8y agoI work in Indonesia a lot and that data makes sense. Every man I know smokes. That's not an exaggeration. It's ridiculously cheap, and with incredibly low income for most of the population, its the only vice that's allowed for most people. A couple of guys on an island in the middle of nowhere once said it helps with the mosquito's (they also keep large fires lit for the same reason) but not sure if anyone else thinks that.
- Scarblac 8y agoAnd none of the women? Do they all smoke kretek cigarettes?
- ionised 8y agoWhen advertising cigarettes became illegal in many western nations, tobacco companies shifted their attentions to developing markets like Indonesia. Smoking is a big and growing business over there.
- chilledheat 8y agoMauritania in Africa had the highest number of cigarettes smoked every day in 2012 ( more than 40 a day ) but the number of deaths from tobacco smoking was in the lowest.. Is this skewed data or do a lot of people die there for other reasons?
- mtrovo 8y agoI remember one of the big chocks for me when I arrived in Germany from Brazil was to see how common is to see people smoking, not only in the street, but inside bars, clubs. My state in Brazil banned cigarettes inside buildings when I was very young so going out and coming back smelling like a chimney was like going back in time.
- Kurtz79 8y agoNot sure how it is now, but when visiting Germany a few years ago it was also weird to see tobacco normally advertised on billboards, while it is illegal in most EU countries.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoGermany has toned it down a lot, but they still have cigarette vending machine at most train stations and randomly scattered around towns, at least in southern Germany.
- manomanowicz 8y agoGoing there recently, I was shocked by the mechanical cigarette dispensers by every checkout lane in the supermarket and the large bags of tobacco openly displayed on shelves for sale on the other side of checkout lane. Contrast that with the UK where tobacco is hidden behind shutters and only available from a separate kiosk area. I wonder if having it openly displayed at checkouts removes the mystery (and hence its appeal) or just serves to make it an impulse purchase?
- melenaos 8y agoThis is so sad for Greece and for us who doesn't smoke
- slazaro 8y agoIt seems that it's impossible for people to show charts without making mistakes in data presentation. This website is literally for showing data, and I'm not an expert and I still see errors all over. For instance: Secondhand smoke deaths by age [0] They show absolute numbers. You can see that for 70+ year olds, the quantity is increasing at 2016 compared to 2010 and 2005. But, how do we know that it is because the rate is increasing, or just because there are more 70+ year olds? If they had shown each age range divided by the total amount of people in the age range, it would have prevented this. Every time I see absolute numbers in any kind of data visualization, immediately an alarm goes off I start to analyze whether that makes sense or they needed percentages, and many many times they messed up. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#secondhand-smoke-deaths-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#secondhand-smoke-deaths-b...