Is smoking really becoming cool again?

Welcome back. Hope you had a good Christmas.

Before we navigate our way into the new year I thought I’d address one of the themes of 2025. You may have missed it, but here are some headlines (and articles) that highlight what I’m talking about.

According to Flora Watkins, writing in The Spectator in February, ‘Smoking is sexy again’. More specifically, Newsweek claimed that ‘Smoking is cool again among Gen Z’, while the Wall Street Journal weighed in with ‘Celebrities are making smoking cigarettes cool again’.

Inevitably, these and similar articles provoked a flurry of handwringing. ‘Charli XCX has made smoking cool again – I wish she hadn’t’, wrote Kitty Crisp in Metro in July, while Liz Hoggard told readers of the Telegraph, ‘I hate the fact that smoking is cool again’.

All were united by the firm belief that smoking is enjoying something of a revival among young people. Only The Week (‘Is smoking cool again?’) and Bloomberg (‘Is Gen Z romanticizing cigarettes again?’) addressed the subject in the form of a question, leaving at least some room for doubt.

Anyway, at the beginning of December I was contacted by a reporter from the Daily Mail who told me he was ‘writing an article about how smoking among young people is becoming popular again and how there is a perception from pop culture that smoking is 'cool' again’.

He wanted to interview me on the phone but I said I would prefer to provide written answers to his questions, which he subsequently emailed to me. I was given a week or so to respond (the article was due to be published ‘over Christmas’), and did so several days ahead of the deadline.

The Mail’s report (‘How Gen Z decided smoking is cool again: Britain's youth turns back to traditional cigarettes as their favourite popstars light up in public’) duly appeared online on Christmas Day, and it won’t surprise you to learn that not one of my carefully crafted words appeared in what was a fairly long article.

There were however lengthy quotes from Hazel Cheeseman, CEO of ASH, and Dr Marina Murphy, senior director of scientific affairs at Haypp Group. Haypp sell vapes and nicotine pouches but, significantly, both groups want smoking eradicated.

Furthermore, the article concluded with a quote from a ‘spokesperson’ for the Department for Health and Social Care who declared: ‘Smoking kills. That's why we're bringing in a landmark law to stop today's teenagers and every generation after them from ever getting hooked on nicotine’.

For the record, here are the questions I was asked with my replies:

Why do you think smoking cigarettes is still seen as being so cool by young people?

There is very little evidence that smoking is seen as cool by most young people, otherwise many more would do it. For most young people smoking has been unfashionable for decades. If some people do think smoking is cool it’s probably because they are told so often not to do it. Some may see smoking as a sort of soft rebellion that we quite like, even if we don’t smoke ourselves.

What role do you think pop culture plays in that perception? For example, with the number of young celebrities such as Charli XCX and Dua Lipa who are frequently pictured smoking.

There have always been young celebrities who smoked, from James Dean to Kate Moss. Despite that smoking rates have fallen steadily for decades, which suggests their influence is very small. People may admire their heroes, but they rarely imitate their lifestyle.

What role do you think vaping is playing in this change in habits for Gen Z? As it seen as all the rage for young people but now there is a perception it isn't as cool anymore. Plus is there a feeling of better the devil you know as well maybe, given the risks of smoking are well established now but the long term effects of vaping are still not known.

It’s true that the long-term effects of vaping are still not known. Nevertheless, current evidence suggests that vaping is far less harmful than smoking. Unfortunately, that message is being drowned out by unnecessary scaremongering about vapes that will undoubtedly deter some people from switching.

What government should focus on is the fact that vaping has been a positive game changer for public health. Not only have millions of people quit smoking and switched to a less harmful product, the availability of vapes has almost certainly discouraged many young people from taking up smoking in the first place.

If vapes are no longer seen as cool, it’s because politicians and campaigners are determined to portray them as a smoking cessation tool rather than a pleasurable recreational device in their own right. Also, by threatening to restrict flavours, the government is eroding one of the things that makes vaping such an attractive alternative to smoking.

Do you think there are any other factors encouraging young people to take up smoking?

There was a time when taking up smoking in your teens was a rite of passage, just as it is still a rite of passage to buy your first pint in a pub, but that was many decades ago. Today very few teenagers smoke, partly because they have been educated about the health risks, and partly because are many more things to spend their money on.

That said, some young people will always experiment with drink and drugs, and if they are smoking it’s probably because they are repeatedly told not to. In fact, the more smoking is regulated by killjoy campaigners and puritanical politicians the more attractive it will seem.

Finally, do you have any other thoughts on what might be causing this increased interest in smoking among young people?

I don’t believe there is an increased interest in smoking among young people. Reports are largely anecdotal and they are driven by an anti-smoking industry that is looking for any excuse to prohibit young adults from taking up the habit.

Tobacco control activists want to create the illusion that more young people are interested in smoking so they can justify even more restrictions, including creeping prohibition. In reality, smoking rates have been falling in every age group for decades, and that includes teenagers and young adults.

No-one wants children to smoke but there are already laws in place designed to stop the sale of cigarettes to anyone under 18. Instead of introducing new laws that discriminate against young adults, the government should enforce existing laws.

There is a significant risk that banning the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults will not only drive the sale of cigarettes underground and into the hands of criminal gangs, but it will actively encourage more young people to smoke, partly as an act of rebellion but also because it’s much cheaper to buy cigarettes from the unregulated black market.

To repeat, not a single word of this was used by the Mail, presumably because it didn’t fit the narrative that smoking is ‘cool’ again and more young people are smoking. Allegedly.

(Note: According to the latest Office for National Statistics report on the subject – Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2024, published in November 2025 – 'Those aged 18 to 24 years have had the largest reduction in smoking prevalence (17.6 percentage points) between 2011 (25.7%) and 2024 (8.1%)'. The 2023 ONS figure for smoking prevalence among those aged 18 to 24 was 9.8% so the suggestion that the smoking rate among young adults in the UK is going up again is, at the very least, disputable.)

Although I had better things to do on Christmas Day, I emailed the journalist concerned and to his credit he did at least reply, albeit in a way that left me even more annoyed. I won’t share his response, which I considered rather feeble, or my subsequent reply (which included the words ‘disappointed’ and ‘pathetic’). I will however share the fact that I have since emailed the Mail’s newsdesk (twice) and left THREE messages on the newsdesk’s voicemail service (because no-one is answering the phone). As I write I have yet to receive a reply, let alone a response to my complaint.

Why does it matter, you may ask. After all, the report was only published online, on Christmas morning, so relatively few people will have read it. But that’s not the point. The issue for me is the fact that Forest’s opinion was solicited but then ignored, in my view because I questioned what appears to have been a preconceived narrative. Am I surprised? Not really, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.

On a personal note, I have been a Daily Mail reader for over 50 years and I have often defended the paper, but I can’t defend this. But is it worth taking the matter any further? Probably not, which is even more dispiriting because it highlights how powerless the reader is. Either way, I shall think twice the next time I am asked to reply (at length) to a journalist’s questions, which isn’t a healthy situation for either side.

As it happens, I know several people who are so disillusioned by the treatment they have received when engaging with the media they are now very reluctant to speak to any journalist or broadcaster. I’m not at that stage myself because I couldn’t do my job if I was, but I understand why they feel that way, and I sympathise.

It does mean, however, that the voice of the ‘ordinary’ smoker often goes unheard because people who used to volunteer to speak to the media no longer wish to do so and the ‘debate’ is duly skewed in favour of the anti-smoking brigade. That is a serious issue because it fundamentally affects public discourse and even proposed legislation.

Anyway, do read the Mail article and tell me what you think.