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Comment by infecto | Hacker News Reader

Lots of Europe especially France is packed with smokers. One of those things you take for granted living in the US and once you travel abroad you realize how much of the world still burns tobacco and it’s everywhere.

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They've mostly switched to vapes now. It's still annoying, but at least it doesn't leave trash all over the streets.

Seeing the sidewalks / parks outside of the main train station in Prague covered in cigarette butts as an American tourist in 2019 was certainly something.

I smoked less in Prague than in the US. I was addicted to nicotine, sure, but I was also addicted to taking a little vacation outside whatever venue, and in Prague (in 2008) you could smoke just about anywhere.

> but at least it doesn't leave trash all over the streets

Last time I was in London I saw enough disposable vapes on the sidewalk to build a home-sized backup battery...

I really believe disposable vapes should be banned

They are banned in the UK since 2025. I still see vapes littered around in places but not sure if they are from before or technically non-disposable models that people have cast off regardless.

Indeed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU

> They've mostly switched to vapes now. It's still annoying, but at least it doesn't leave trash all over the streets.

Vape fumes also smell far less bad and are almost not toxic to bystanders.

I hate smoke but I wouldn't say vapes are any less bad. It's rare to get a face full of smoke, though, as smokers are generally considerate enough at this point, while vapers seemingly have no qualms with releasing huge clouds of sickly vapour right into crowds of people.

You can't be serious. If someone smokes indoors, you can smell it for hours or days afterward. All your clothes smell like it the next day. Nothing remotely like this happens with vapes. It's far less bad.

Smoking/vaping in indoor public places has been banned across the EU/UK for decades so you only encounter unwanted smoke/vapour outside.

Or in indoor non-public places.

How many Americans do you think smoke? (Genuine question, I've never been to the States but did live in South America, and was absolutely shocked by how almost nobody smokes there.)

It has supposedly dropped to below 10% (but higher on average in rural areas than in cities, and of course that's just smoking, not the use of other nicotine products)

https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/u-s-smoking-rate-hits-an-all-t...

The article suggests that 18%+ are using some kind of nicotine product in general (zyn, chewing tobacco, vape, smoking)

In any case it has been mostly successfully purged from public spaces.

Holy cow, that's low -- congrats!

> at least it doesn't leave trash all over the streets.

It leaves lithium ion batteries everywhere. There are even YouTube videos by people scavenging them to build small battery banks.

The UK is the same as the US in this regard. It's quite a shock going to the continent. The most shocking for me was Germany. Regular suburbs up and down the country have vending machines selling cigarettes on every street corner. You don't have to walk more than a block from anywhere to buy cigarettes, 24 hours a day, it seems. What's more is they still have smoking establishments due to having an exception to the EU-wide smoking ban, because of course they do. I went to a smaller bar and didn't even know what was wrong at first, but something seemed different, then realised it was smoke which is at this point a distant memory in the UK.

Seen those in Italy.

You use your healthcare insurance card to access the goods - whoever thought of this has quite the sense of humour.

Italy too. It's bizarre trying to hop on the trenitalia trains while a bunch of random people are standing on the platform right in front of the doors trying to get a few last drags in before the train leaves.

I'm not American though and while smokers are everywhere here, I don't recall ever being on a flight where smoking was allowed, even though the one mentioned was a connecting flight through Paris.

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