Obligatory 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.

It 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-b...

Isn'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.

I 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.

Is 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.

What'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?

I 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.

Very 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.

What is up with the daily cigarette consumption in Suriname? 108 cigs a day can't be a normal average right?

While 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.

Why 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.

The 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.

In 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)

Price 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.

What'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...

I 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.

Would be interesting to see the same data for vaping.

I 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.

I 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% !!

This is so sad for Greece and for us who doesn't smoke

What is going on in Chile?

One 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.

Mauritania 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?

My dad smoked from he was 16 until around 46 in 2003, when he suffered a (mild) heart attack. He had surgery and a stent put in, and completely quit smoking.

After a short recovery, it was like he was 10 years younger. Previously he would get winded just from tying his shoelaces, a combined effect of the smoking and constricted blood flow.

After recovering, it was like he got a new lease on life, he started getting into cooking healthier food, he started exercising and he even started playing the drums again. He's never been particularly open about his feelings, but I think it was a real eye opener for him, to face his own mortality and realizing that he'd been working way too much and not taking proper care of himself. His own dad died around the same age, also from a heart attack, which also made me realize that I have to watch my cholesterol and exercise more.

My dad turns 61 this October, and he's doing better than ever, fit as a fiddle, goes running and swimming every week. I'm glad he got a relatively mild warning and heeded it, otherwise he probably wouldn't be here today. And I'm glad medical technology had advanced to a point where they could save him, unlike his dad.

My 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."

There's a difference between the government telling you (i.e. a real person) what to do on the one hand, and the government telling a corporation (i.e. a system that can neither live nor die, can neither suffer nor experience pleasure) how they can advertise their wares on the other hand.

For instance, Australian adults are free to smoke cigarettes. But companies operating in Australia are not allowed to sell cigarettes without conforming to various restrictions and regulations. Those aren't the same thing.

So the analogy here would be that Coca-Cola is freely allowed to sell their goods, but (a) they're not allowed to advertise them and (b) when they sell them, they should say something like "sugary beverages cause diabetes" (if that's the valid and analogous claim) and show a picture of person with a foot that needs amputating.

If you still want to buy a coke when the bottle looks like a scene from a horror show, you'd be allowed to. But they'd have to give you a reasonable assessment of the consequences of drinking this beverage (which are generally not becoming a hot fit 20 year old on the beach). (Assuming that there is a valid link between regular consumption of sugary beverages and obesity-related health problems - it's not a topic I've specifically investigated but it seems to be the general assumption.)

> It could get absurd, but the moment you let the government control even something small, it just keeps growing until we are quite literally Nazi germany where only “ideal” people are allowed to breed or receive permission to open businesses or get desirable jobs.

You are making a non-sensical slippery slope argument. Heroin has been prohibited for a long time in the US, yet it hasn't turned into Nazi Germany.

> It could get absurd, but the moment you let the government control even something small, it just keeps growing until we are quite literally Nazi germany where only “ideal” people are allowed to breed or receive permission to open businesses or get desirable jobs.

Every government controls more than something small. Very few of them ever turn into Nazi Germany. So, no, I don't think that slippery slope is a useful guideline for evaluating real world questions.