> Dear god, each US citizen smoked 5 cigs per day on average in 1930? It's mind-boggling. The US population was smaller at that time, so it was probably more.

> Dear god, each US citizen smoked 5 cigs per day on average in 1930? It's mind-boggling. The US population was smaller at that time, so it was probably more. It also peaked at about 4500 in the 60s [1], so it was even higher then. I do suspect the pareto effect applied here, and the heaviest 20% of smokers raised the mean for the entire population. For example, about 70-80% of alcohol consumed in the US is consumed by the top 20% drinkers. 1: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11795/chapter/4#42 https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11795/chapter/4#42