top | item 47165636

(no title)

9999_points | 4 days ago

I assume a lot of people 50+ were exposed to a lot more lead and cigarette smoke than younger people.

discuss

order

steveBK123|4 days ago

Yes, for those under 30 you have no idea how normalized smoking was right thru the 90s. Restaurants reeked of it, bars more so. A ridiculous percent of men smoked.

I have memories of being quite young sitting in a relatives lap at a baseball game while they smoked. Or my coach in little league smoking a pipe in the dugout filled with 11 year olds.

seidleroni|4 days ago

I was explaining this to my elementary school aged kids just a few days ago. We were eating in a restaurant and I told them that when I was their age most restaurants had a smoking and non-smoking section. Of course the smoke did not respect the invisible barrier. The idea that people could just smoke indoors and it was normal really blew their minds.

FeloniousHam|4 days ago

I distinctly remember one Christmas in the mid-70s where my grandfather and uncles all got these ash trays shaped like a house (when you set your pipe/cigarette/cigar down the smoke coiled out the chimney). Everyone was smoking indoors, despite my grandmother was quite fussy and tidy about pretty much everything.

For that matter, my childhood art classes almost always included making an ashtray.

542354234235|4 days ago

My grandparents didn’t smoke. They didn’t allow smoking in their house and that was seen as super weird in Texas. Even if you didn’t smoke, it was just expected that smokers can smoke wherever. Having ashtrays in the common area was the normal polite thing.

keeda|4 days ago

Smoking was allowed on planes!

The first time I ever flew as a kid, I was so excited to be on a plane! And then it turned out to be a 5 hour+ flight with negligible entertainment options and I was so bored...

And then, another dude got bored so he moved to the empty back rows of the plane and smoked for the rest of the flight, and the whole plane was suffused with the smell, and I was so sick.

Like, even those who smoke generally hate the smell of that stale second-hand smoke, especially if locked up in an enclosed space for hours.

JKCalhoun|4 days ago

Never mind the automobile smoke. (Thankfully we dropped leaded gasoline but) have you ever found yourself following a vintage 1970's-era muscle car or similar down the road today?

Wow, that non-catalytically-converted smoke brings back the memories…

Goronmon|4 days ago

Every vehicle came with an electric lighter and plenty of ash trays. One of the more common crafts kids used to do was making ash trays for their parents.

zeristor|4 days ago

On the Underground there were two carriages for smokers, they were usually a bit more empty, and they were browned with tar on the walls and ceiling.

The ban on smoking on the Underground was after the second tube station fire when they realised it might be dangerous, there was also a football stadium that caught fire around the same time too.

The root cause seem to be a build up of rubbish, along with a cigarette but starting it.

So many tragedies in the mid-eighties UK.

croon|4 days ago

More than people 65+?

> “In younger men and those over 65, the associations were weaker and generally not statistically significant,”