Holy Smoke

Holy Smoke

"California is the worst. New York is better. But Europe is obviously the best—there’s no stigma there, just none.”

Meet Chloe (who’s not using her real name, and neither is anyone else in this story). A mother of two young boys, outgoing, sporty, married, a successful V.P. at Google, Chloe’s like an Instagram filter of health. Except for the one thing.

“Parliaments,” she says. “I smoked in college because everyone did, and then I stopped for years. And now I’d hardly call myself a smoker. I’d call myself … a secret social smoker. I’d never have a cigarette alone. That way I can pretend I’m not a real smoker.”

There’s a return among women in their 30s and 40s—let’s call them the ones who know a Loewe Flamenco is not a dance—to old-fashioned smoking. Maybe it’s secret smoking. Maybe it’s social smoking. Maybe it’s both.

Setting aside the calamitous health risks of inhaling neatly packed carcinogens through your lips, past your gums, into your esophagus, and ultimately deep into your delicate alveoli, there’s something retrograde about lighting up a cigarette in 2024. It’s like manual transmission or wearing a pager on your belt but with the added risk of cancer. Once carcinogens teched up and became berry-scented vaping or teched down and became nicotine pouches (those disgusting things Gen Z likes to tuck inside their lower lip), cigarettes—in their palpable, unmasked tobacco-ness—gained a sort of misguided glamour.

This new vice is an old vice that was basically hibernating for a decade. “I wouldn’t consider myself a smoker by any means,” says Alice, a fashion influencer, who does, in fact, smoke. “Maybe the return of smoking in the fashion world is connected to the rise of Ozempic and the whole mentality of appetite suppression. If we’re being honest, the body-positivity movement never hit fashion. Plus, I only smoke when I’m in Paris.”

“I’d never have a cigarette alone. That way I can pretend I’m not a real smoker.”

If you’re looking for something to blame, the wellness industry is a good place to start. With its P.S.A.’s to eliminate meat, processed food, and anything cooked in a nonstick pan with a black spatula, it almost taunted people to rebel.

And if you want to rebel, you go to the seedy, underground pockets of society. The ones that flip their middle finger at all things wellness. Look at the rise of the rarefied Hestia brand of cigarettes or the brazenness of @cigfluencers or the flood of smoking men answering a Jeremy Allen White look-alike contest recently in which the prize was a pack of Marlboro Reds.

Every woman I spoke to has parameters—most without much logic. They’ll smoke but only in Europe. Only when the kids are asleep. Only with this one person. Only on Election Night or any other night that telegraphs a pending apocalypse. But they all said that the best place to indulge is still in hiding. “I would never post a picture with a cigarette,” says Alice. “People have very strong opinions, especially when you’re in a position to be influencing.”

Maybe secrecy is part of the appeal: passing gummies around with dessert is hardly shocking anymore. But open up a pack of cigarettes and watch the jaws drop and the eyebrows raise.

“It’s fun and conspiratorial to sneak outside with a couple of friends,” says Dana, who “bums them off the catering staff” at parties and events. “It feels like being 22 again.”

Besides, it’s not a real problem since pretty much every secret social smoker has plans to quit for good. Says Leigh Ann, “Just not quite yet.” ✨

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Image Credits: Horacio Salinas

Shaheen Ali Kazmi is a New Delhi–based writer. Formerly a Ph.D. student and biochemist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). She is a nutritionist and naturopath.