People have been smoking (in various ways) for thousands of years, yet there has been a substantial shift over the past few decades as to how prevalent it should be in our society. Smoking inside restaurants was common just a few decades ago, and now people will often look at you askew if you smoke outside.

I think this view is fairly American centric. Go to any bar in Tokyo and you will be given an ashtray to smoke cigarettes with your drink. In China they have museums dedicated to tobacco cultivation and use. And even here in America, we mostly just switched to vaping tobacco and smoking marijuana.

> I think this view is fairly American centric. Go to any bar in Tokyo and you will be given an ashtray to smoke cigarettes with your drink.

From March this year: "Japan’s ban on smoking inside restaurants and bars takes effect this week"[1]

Seemingly entrenched cultural trends can and do change.

[1] https://www.stripes.com/news/japan-s-ban-on-smoking-inside-r...

Yea, not to mention cigarettes versus tobacco being a bit different.