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Comment by Rebelgecko | Hacker News Reader

It wasn't that long ago that schools (even middle schools) had smoking sections for the students

Yea, one of my high schools had a smoking area as well. Two actually - the official one, and the one on the opposite side of the parking lot where all the metalheads hung out.

I thought it was weird that the other high school didn't have a smoking area, because we were in a tobacco farming town, and a huge number of teens worked in the tobacco industry.

This is fascinating. May I ask where and when (approximately)?

I attended middle school in the early 1980s and we didn’t have anything like that. My siblings attended middle school in an entirely different state, and neither did they. Nor high school. When you say “not that long ago”, precisely how long ago are you talking?

I think the 80s were an inflection point. It was pretty rare by 90s/200s. In 1986 apparently only 26% of (high?) schools still had smoking sections and 9% allowed smoking indoors[1]. I'd guess that the breakdown will vary drastically state by state but I haven't bothered to dig deeper :)

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/30/nyregion/school-smoking-b...

In 1987 my high school had a smoking area for students 17 years old or older.

And of course, the teachers lounge was always smoke filled, walking in there was like walking into a bar at time, the air had a visible haze of cigarette smoke. I don’t know how the non smoking teachers could handle it.

Graduated in ‘89, my HS had a smoking patio. Was closed in early 90s

I also graduated in ‘89 in Illinois and we had “Southside” - an outside smoking area at our high school.

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