Oh, Lord. Smoking Is Cool Again

If pertussis and polio, measles and mumps can return from the brink of extinction, largely due to loss of faith in public health advice, then smoking — the leading preventable cause of disability, disease, and death worldwide — was bound to emerge from its flop era too.

Quitting is difficult . I should know, having quit several times since I picked up the habit, way back in my twenties. I don’t smoke anymore, though. My last cigarette was four months ago, thanks in large part to British Columbia’s smoking cessation program, QuitNow, which supplies me with what seems to be an infinite supply of Nicorette.

It’s peculiar, leaving the drugstore, my black backpack bulging with government-subsidized gum .

But the service makes sense, as it’s cheaper to pay for whatever I need to quit now than to subsidize all the additional health care I’ll need after smoking my whole adult life.

Illnesses related to tobacco cost the federal government upwards of $2.3 billion a year . A box of Nicorette is roughly $60. The math is really mathing , as they say. And the program is working for me.

Meanwhile, it seems as though popular culture is working against me. It’s hard to ignore that I’m quitting while swimming upstream.

The cigarette is back in fashion, suddenly ubiquitous on Instagram, where “cigfluencers” — that’s what these sexy celebrity smokers are called — rehabilitate the habit for another generation.

Perhaps the greatest cigfluencer of the modern era is the British pop musician Charli XCX, whose latest release, Music, Fashion, Film , is a vibe, in the vein of her best-selling 2024 album brat ; and whose Rolling Stone cover , on checkout stands now, centres and accentuates the cigarette that dangles from her mouth. A highly provocative choice, and a rare one, these days.

Plenty of celebrities have posed with a smoke on the cover of Rolling Stone: Bruno Mars, Keith Richards, Charlie Sheen, the cast of Mad Men — twice.

But none of these other examples are recent. Each is from the early 2010s. Charli XCX is the first to be photographed smoking or holding a cigarette on the cover of the magazine in over 13 years.

It’s very on-brand for the pop star, whose affinity for smoking is the engine of her indie sleaze aesthetic. It’s dirtbag behaviour, but dirtbag behaviour’s becoming incredibly Julia.

At Charli’s 32nd birthday back in 2024, the Spanish singer Rosalía brought her flowers — a bouquet of black calla lilies anointed with Parliament White cigarettes. Her wedding last summer had Vogue super-slims on a platter.

Dua Lipa had the same for hers in May. According to the Guardian , the hottest wedding trend is serving cigarettes in lieu of deviled eggs.

Many sexy people are becoming cigfluencers. Kylie Jenner . Justin Bieber. Hailey Bieber . Beyoncé in Paris, onstage . Ben Affleck in the meme that best defines our collective mood.