#and this isn't like some cusp-of-18 situation where you get a headstart on stuff like that. i won't share their age but it's messed up

[lord-radish]

I feel like smoking has come back in a huge way, and vaping was probably the catalyst for this revival.

I'm gonna preface this by saying that I believe that vaping can be a positive and productive alternative to smoking for people who are trying to quit tobacco. I'm critical of how the tobacco industry has co-opted vapes, but I recognise how responsible use of a vaporiser can help people wean themselves off of smoking.

Rather, I think the massive push that vapes got in the latter half of the 2010's, its increasing popularity since then and corporate pushing of single-use vapes has led to a massive rise in smoking - and as a part of that popularization of vaping, non-narcotic vapes have served as a gateway for kids and teenagers into smoking.

The reason I'm saying that smoking has made a huge comeback is due to the amount of smoke shops that's opened in my town over the last few years. Back in 2013, we had one dedicated smoke shop/souvenir shop - our local video store went out of business and a smoke shop named TSG moved in. Before that, our supermarkets all had smokes, and so did some of the petrol stations - let's say that we had about four or five places to buy smokes in town.

Since 2020, that number has doubled.

We have a Smokemart down the road, a Cignall around the corner from that, a vaping shop with smoking paraphernalia - and in the last month, a paraphernalia shop opened on the main street with hookah units and other stuff. It advertises smoking accessories and vapes in the front window in huge printed letters. If you count a local import candy store that sells hookah units as well, that's five more places in town since 2020 where you can buy tobacco, vapes and other smoking paraphernalia. Literally, in the span of three years, smoke shops have DOUBLED in this town.

And while my town is fairly big and bustling, we're out in buttfuck nowhere. We're like a satellite town with a lot of smaller villages and stuff hanging around. We're not a small city like Wagga or Orange, we're only just scratching 10,000 people.

And what makes this so bizarre is that my town had the same few tobacconists for decades. You bought smokes at the supermarket or the petrol station. My mum's a smoker, she's always bought her smokes from the store. TSG, which I mentioned before, came in about ten years ago; it stuck around, but no-one else came to town to sell tobacco products.

Since 2020, though? TWICE AS MANY SMOKE SHOPS.

This correlates with an uptick of vaping, both in the general populace and with schoolkids. The police went to one of our high schools and checked like fifty lockers, and forty two of them had vapes. That's not a figure I got from the cops, that's a figure from one of the students who was there.

My mum, who I mentioned before as someone who's been smoking for longer than I've been alive? Even she's getting in on the single-use vape train. You can walk into a shop, buy a vape in a box and walk out. New places are opening all the time, and as well as attracting a new wave of clientele, you're also getting old-school, dyed-in-the-wool smokers giving it a go.

Like there's something seriously fucking wrong happening. It's like how in the span of ten years, we've had mobile betting apps flooding the market and advertising at all hours of the day - it used to be reserved for sports broadcasts.

I don't mean to shit on smokers. People smoke. I drink a lot, I get how addictive substances get their hooks in and make you feel better. This isn't a judgement call about people who smoke - my mum smokes, and for better or for worse, I love her.

My beef is with the rampant revitalisation of a predatory industry that makes money hand over fist peddling addictive substances, with this new wave of profits coming from pushing a new, hip smoking product that can legally be sold to children.

I just see how much it's been taking off in my tiny corner of the woods, and it feels really fucked up and wrong. I don't want these fucking leeches making smoking more visible and accessible than it already is.

#smoking #vaping #tobacco #vape #so two additions: first of all this doesn't even begin to cover my in-depth thoughts on smoking #which are adjacent to 'I disagree with increasing the price of smokes because it punishes the people who are the most addicted' #while of course being entirely critical of an industry that peddles cancer and addiction for filthy lucre #secondly: my workplace employs schoolkids between the hours of 4pm and 7pm #they do basic tasks like folding linen and putting stuff through the roller. the heavy stuff like unloading washers and dryers is my job #i heard about the police bust on vapes from one of the juniors directly. even he fucking vapes #and this isn't like some cusp-of-18 situation where you get a headstart on stuff like that. i won't share their age but it's messed up