Smoking. It's Hot Again
June 3, 2026
Everywhere we look people are smoking again.
Especially on social media. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here……..
Especially on social media. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here……..
“Women of multi Cultures are still hiding it from their parents of course. Despite having adult kids of their own. In my late teens I used to smoke with my Mother who used to smoke in secret and would have preferred me to. The “concerned aunties” do get tiring to bat away. I share a story in the audio article
1. Smoking. It's Hot Again.
We talk about why we think smoking is trending again and why we believe it’s innate human behaviour. A need. Not a fad. Everyone’s holding their breath, we all need to exhale but we don’t know how.
PLEASE NOTE: We are not glamourising smoking. If you think that, that’s on you. Exhale.
PLEASE NOTE: We are not glamourising smoking. If you think that, that’s on you. Exhale.
What would be really cool is if they used an innate need as a chance to make smoking medicinal, to make it actually good for us… but it’s ill-health that generates profit.
2. When and Why Did You Start Smoking?
I, like most people who smoke, started at 13 but… didn’t actually inhale until I was 16 and in boarding school in Aus. The white girls showed me how to smoke properly and look, I really liked it. I don’t know why I started, to look older, to look “sophisticated”, to perhaps draw attention to myself to keep my Mother and me safe.
Lee started smoking after his teenage years… and it wasn’t peer pressure that made him start. It was a peer who understood the pressure…
3. Ep 59. Why is Smoking a "Sin'?
Published: June 13, 2023.
One of our old episodes from RADIO FLY.
I was deep in the throes of healing from breaking open my suppressed trauma, wounds were fresh and internal noise was loud… so I haven’t been able to listen to any of these old episodes. My apologies if I sound intense. Around this time I had started blowing bubbles, and I explain in the latter article how it helped me heal and what it helped me heal from. I also developed an urge to smoke so I found nicotine-free, tobacco-free cigarettes.
While it IS really nice to no longer have the fog of cigarette smoke everywhere [even when I was a smoker in my 20s and early 30s, I loathed the smell of smoke], I don’t understand why it is seen as a moral failing. The moral and ethical failings lie with the people who lied for profit.
Fact is, we all know smoking anything, in any form, even nicotine-free, tobacco-free cigarettes, is bad, but we’re all still doing it. Even more. I also believe that smoking is an innate human need and could be used for the GOOD of humans.
Is war not a moral failing? More than just an ethical one.
I believe we may have offered some insight and honesty about the emotional and psychological wants of the body, but also, and this is very important to understand… smoking looks cool to the Human eye.
Articles online [so many ‘written’ by AI-bots!] say this is a result of conditioning. “Finding the act of smoking attractive is a classic example of how your orbitofrontal cortex[which controls reward, emotion and depression] can be conditioned by culture, media, and evolutionary psychology.”
None of us have ever known a time without conflict in the world. Majority of us still find it a conflict.
The way I see it, a natural Human desire became a tool of exploitation. Proclaiming an innate need “bad” [not just health wise but as a “moral failing”] and pumping the tobacco full of chemicals [“tar”] was guaranteed to make people fear it… as well as curious as to why it was so bad, especially when exhaling feels so good.
We can blame pop culture and media but both are part of the evolutionary process, not separate from it.
Culture and media messaging can make a person want to smoke but… what makes us perceive a person smoking as cool? And why?
This is my favourite smoking scene in a movie ever, from the 1981 blockbuster Hindi cinema movie, ‘Naseeb’, and I played a chimney in this pertinent, prescient short film by Eterna Films.
Check out the smoking hot trailblazers [not for the smoking] shown above in the TS Pinterest Board.
REKHA:
This smoking hot photo of Hindi Cinema actress and Living Legend REKHA (born Bhanurekha Ganesan) is a popular social media empowerment meme, shared for its Devi May Care 😉 attitude but usually without attribution.
JAGDISH MALI was a celebrated Indian fashion and film photographer, most famously known for his artistic collaborations with REKHA. This is one of their iconic collaborations.
During the 1980s MALI was a staff photographer for the entertainment magazine Cine Blitz. Mali’s visual style became synonymous with the magazine’s aesthetic and cover impact.
Mali was also Rekha’s main photographer and she was his muse, a “photographer’s delight”.
He credited her with creating a ‘look’ that “revolutionized Indian cinema” and their decade-long collaboration produced some of her most iconic magazine covers and portraits. (Some shown here)
JAGDISH MALI passed away on May 13, 2013, at the age of 59.
5. Why do we want to smoke? And why does it look cool?
This is what the Google info-curator summarised. I have withheld my observations but much of its summation reads like programmed-ganda and not the collective voice‘s viewpoints. – SN
This is what the Google info-curator summarised. I have withheld my observations but much of its summation reads like programmed-ganda and not the collective voice‘s viewpoints. – SN
“While the smell or health reality of cigarettes might activate a disgust response in the insula for many, the visual cues of someone smoking can trigger strong positive valuation in the brain due to several psychological and neurological factors:
1. Cultural Conditioning and “Vicarious Learning”:
For over a century, media and advertising have deliberately linked smoking to high social status, confidence, and eroticism.
a. The Brain’s Mirror Neurons: When you see a charismatic actor or model smoke on screen, mirror neurons in your brain fire as if you are performing the action yourself.
b. Associative Reward: Your amygdala and OFC connect the physical cigarette with the “coolness,” power, or sex appeal of the person holding it. This process, known as vicarious learning, conditions your brain to register the cigarette itself as an attractive, premium visual cue.
2. The “Rebel” and Risk-Taking Signal:
From an evolutionary perspective, visible risk-taking can sometimes act as a signal of high fitness or confidence.
a. The “Bad Boy/Girl” Trope: Smoking is a highly visible, rule-breaking behavior. In psychological studies, people—particularly when looking for short-term relationships—often rate individuals engaging in risky behaviors like smoking or drinking as more attractive.
b. Brain Evaluation: Your Rostromedial Prefrontal Cortex decodes this behavior as a sign of high social openness, confidence, and independence, which your reward system interprets as an exciting or “edgy” trait.
3. Deliberate, High-Salience Physical Movements:
Smoking forces a person into a specific physical rhythm that naturally draws visual attention.
a. Pacing and Focus: Smoking requires slow, deep inhalations, pauses, and controlled exhalations. This slows down a person’s cadence and can make them appear exceptionally calm, calculated, or unfazed by their surroundings.
b. Highlighting Facial Features: The hand-to-mouth motion physically draws a viewer’s eyes directly to the lips and jawline. This extra visual attention gives your Fusiform Face Area (FFA) more time to process the person’s facial features, heightening visual focus and salience.
4. Shared Vices and Lowered Barriers:
If the observer is also a smoker or occasional smoker, seeing someone else light up triggers a highly specific response.
a. Dopamine Anticipation: The sight of a cigarette acts as an environmental cue that floods the observer’s ventral striatum with anticipation dopamine.
b. Social Bonding: It signals a shared vice. Your brain immediately interprets the other person as approachable and non-judgmental, instantly lowering social anxiety and increasing perceived chemistry.
EXCERPTS FOR FURTHER READING:
This refers to the article mentioned in the episode:
1. Australians are spending less to consume more nicotine as illegal tobacco trade explodes
by Jordyn Beazley. Wed 3 Jun 2026
“Australians are consuming more nicotine than they were eight years ago but are spending less, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows, as 80% of the cigarettes smoked by the nation last year were cheaper illegal products.
The analysis released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday showed the amount of nicotine consumed around the country soared by 40% between 2017 and 2025, despite population growth rising by just 14%.
The ABS said the growth was driven by illegal tobacco and increases in e-cigarettes and other products. In 2017, only 12% of the total tobacco consumed was from illicit sources. By 2025, that had risen to 80%.
The analysis released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday showed the amount of nicotine consumed around the country soared by 40% between 2017 and 2025, despite population growth rising by just 14%.
The ABS said the growth was driven by illegal tobacco and increases in e-cigarettes and other products. In 2017, only 12% of the total tobacco consumed was from illicit sources. By 2025, that had risen to 80%.
[…]
The New South Wales health minister, Ryan Park, told Guardian Australia the data was “unsurprising” and pointed to a “growing disparity between the cost in legal and illicit tobacco, created by the federal government’s tobacco excise”.
“As we face one of the toughest cost-of-living challenges in living memory I can only see excise-free products become more and more attractive,” he said.
READ MORE at The Guardian.
2. Men smoke cigarettes to deal with their emotions
by Cherry Norton, Health Correspondent. May 3, 1999
“Men are more likely to smoke cigarettes to control their emotions than women, according to a study. The findings contradict a common belief that women are more psychologically dependent on cigarettes than men. The research found men were more likely than women to grab a cigarette if they felt angry, anxious or sad.
Smoking was also found to reduce anger and sadness in men.
[…]
The urge to smoke was more strongly associated with anger, anxiety and alertness in men than in women. Feelings of sadness or fatigue were linked with the urge to smoke in men only. When the men smoked they felt less angry and it reduced their feelings of sadness. In women smoking was associated with feelings of happiness which were not reported by the men.”
[…]
The urge to smoke was more strongly associated with anger, anxiety and alertness in men than in women. Feelings of sadness or fatigue were linked with the urge to smoke in men only. When the men smoked they felt less angry and it reduced their feelings of sadness. In women smoking was associated with feelings of happiness which were not reported by the men.”
READ MORE at Independent UK.
3. Beneficial effects of nicotine and cigarette smoking: the real, the possible and the spurious
by John A. Baron, British Medical Bulletin, Volume 52, Issue 1, January 1996.
“Cigarette smoking is an established risk factor for cancer and cardiovascular disease, and is the leading cause of avoidable disease in most industrialized countries. Less well-known are possible beneficial effects, which are briefly considered in this survey.
[…] Evidence is growing that cigarette smoking and nicotine may prevent or ameliorate Parkinson’s disease, and could do so in Alzheimer’s dementia.”
READ MORE at Oxford Academic
4. Will smoking ever be safe?
The tobacco industry has spent millions in pursuit of its Holy Grail – the cancer-free cigarette. But even if they succeed, smokers might not like it
by Will Storr. September 6, 2012
There exists, in some lawyer’s vault, somewhere in the United States, a secret memo that was authored by a tobacco company executive back in 1955. Written in the exclamatory patois of the time, it says, “Boy! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our company was first to produce a cancer-free cigarette. What we could do to the competition.”
Just imagine it: a safe cigarette. One that doesn’t kill by causing cancer, or the diseases of the heart and lungs. One that can be consumed with pleasure to the smoker, benefit to the treasury and profit to the tobacco giants.
Just imagine it: a safe cigarette. One that doesn’t kill by causing cancer, or the diseases of the heart and lungs. One that can be consumed with pleasure to the smoker, benefit to the treasury and profit to the tobacco giants.
[…]
The early years of the quest were notable, chiefly, for the fact that they were rarely admitted publicly. The companies feared that public acknowledgement of a link between smoking, addiction and health would cause governments to regulate, sales to collapse and ruinous lawsuits to be brought.
[…]
It’s hard to imagine that the research and development laboratories of British American Tobacco (BAT) were once a secret.
[…]
“Whilst we have a fiduciary responsibility to make money for our shareholders, we also need to behave responsibly,” says chief scientific officer, Dr Chris Proctor, […] “We’ve got consumers getting sick because they use our products.”
[…]
It’s a statement that previous BAT executives wouldn’t have dreamt of making. Incredibly, tobacco companies in the US were still denying the link between smoking, addiction and disease as recently as 2000 (in Britain, they began conceding the truth in the early Nineties).
“Whilst we have a fiduciary responsibility to make money for our shareholders, we also need to behave responsibly,” says chief scientific officer, Dr Chris Proctor, […] “We’ve got consumers getting sick because they use our products.”
[…]
It’s a statement that previous BAT executives wouldn’t have dreamt of making. Incredibly, tobacco companies in the US were still denying the link between smoking, addiction and disease as recently as 2000 (in Britain, they began conceding the truth in the early Nineties).
[…]
In 1962, the tobacco industry’s nightmare became real.
A study by the Royal College of Physicians concluded that smoking causes lung cancer and urged the government to take “decisive steps” to combat the problem.
[…]
One early answer was the filter. When Kent introduced its new filtered cigarettes, sales increased by more than $20 billion in a year. But there was a problem. “It was made out of asbestos,” says Mitch Zeller, a former associate commissioner of America’s Food and Drug Administration. “Sadly, all the people that were sucking down on those filters were sucking down asbestos fibres as well.”
[…]
In the early Seventies, the industry came up with another clever scheme: “light” or “low-tar” cigarettes….
[…]
It wasn’t until 1988 that the industry announced its next major advance, […] the ingenious “Premier” cigarette. Having cost $325 million to develop, the Premier helped solve the primary source of danger to any smoker: combustion.
It’s the act of burning, […] that triggers the release of hundreds of toxic substances.
It’s the act of burning, […] that triggers the release of hundreds of toxic substances.
“Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that is produced whenever you burn any organic compound, whether it’s petrol, paper or tobacco leaf,” he says. “When you inhale it, it gets into the bloodstream, and that has a number of effects, one of which is to increase the hardening of the arteries. That contributes to heart disease.
Then you’ve got the ‘tar’, which is just the name for a very large number of chemicals, many of which are known to be highly carcinogenic.”
[…]
What they couldn’t know, back in the Eighties, was that their mission had been impossible from the start. Today, neuroscientists know cigarettes to be addictive in several different ways. One of its mechanisms involves nicotine triggering the release of dopamine in a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens….
[…]
Deep in the smoking archives hides an altogether more curious tale. Early in the Sixties, a team of scientists led by the chemist James Mold announced to their bosses at the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company that they had developed a truly “cancer-free” cigarette.
Mold, now deceased, told a reporter in 1992, “We were the only ones in the whole damned world able to solve this problem.”
After studying his data, the company apparently agreed. They stockpiled ingredients for Mold’s creation (it was to be coated with the metal palladium*), and developed an advertising campaign for what they’d called “Tame” cigarettes. And then, it was killed. “I think they were concerned that they’d have everybody suing them because they’d be admitting they’d been making a hazardous cigarette,” said Mold.
READ MORE at The Telegraph UK [paywall but free for 7 days]
*Palladium Alters Cigarette Smoke Toxicological Profile, but Accumulates in the Lungs of Rats During Inhalation Exposure. February 2008
READ MORE at Research Gate.
______________________________
5. New Tobacco Records: Did Industry Know Risks Early?
By Myron Levin. April 21, 1988
“Other documents show that all three companies were interested in developing non-cancer-causing cigarettes.
Liggett’s work in the area consumed 20 years and more than $14 million. According to Dr. James D. Mold, Liggett’s assistant research director until 1979, the project was successful but the company decided not to market the cigarette due to pressure from company lawyers.
“They felt that such a cigarette if put on the market would seriously indict them for having sold other types of cigarettes,” Mold said in his videotaped deposition.
Mold described how scientists at Liggett and Arthur D. Little found an additive to neutralize the cancer-causing compounds in the tar of tobacco smoke. The additive was a mixture of magnesium nitrate and palladium–a metal used in auto catalytic converters to reduce exhaust.
In mouse skin painting studies using tar from palladium nitrate tobacco, cancers were reduced up to 100%. Mold said his group also concluded through tests that the palladium did not present new risks.
Mold described “a schizophrenia” at Liggett, where top management was supportive but the legal staff “would pounce upon . . . any problem . . . in an attempt to kill the project.”
READ MORE at LA Times.