Not sure where you're comparing to but compared to the US the difference is stark. I expect to see the occasional smoker on your average US city block, but in Europe it feels like I cannot go outside any building without the doors being surrounded by smokers. Anecdotally my experience is very different to yours and also this map indicates my experience is not isolated. Compared to the US just about all the European countries have a higher density of smokers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_consumption_by_country
I will say that in the rural US the smoking rate "feels" higher than even the European countries I've visited. Maybe you're from the rural US? It feels like the rate in US cities is extremely lower than in the rural south
I was going to link the same wiki to argue the opposite. Twice as much as tiny is still small. What that wiki article shows to me is that tobacco use is way way down, the 12th country on that list only has double the tobacco use of the US. Considering 60 years ago about half of adults smoked in the westernized world it's way down and it's been on a constant decline. Several European countries are only marginally higher than the US and ~4 are lower.
Though I must admit, looking at more data, it's still higher than I would have guessed, about 12% in the USA when I would have guessed 5%. I live in a city.
I don't know why suddenly the bar for comparison is the world generally decades ago. We were comparing countries. My point stands, most European countries have higher smoking rates than in the US. Even if there are a few exceptions.
Not sure where you're comparing to but compared to the US the difference is stark. I expect to see the occasional smoker on your average US city block, but in Europe it feels like I cannot go outside any building without the doors being surrounded by smokers. Anecdotally my experience is very different to yours and also this map indicates my experience is not isolated. Compared to the US just about all the European countries have a higher density of smokers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_consumption_by_country
I will say that in the rural US the smoking rate "feels" higher than even the European countries I've visited. Maybe you're from the rural US? It feels like the rate in US cities is extremely lower than in the rural south
I was going to link the same wiki to argue the opposite. Twice as much as tiny is still small. What that wiki article shows to me is that tobacco use is way way down, the 12th country on that list only has double the tobacco use of the US. Considering 60 years ago about half of adults smoked in the westernized world it's way down and it's been on a constant decline. Several European countries are only marginally higher than the US and ~4 are lower.
Though I must admit, looking at more data, it's still higher than I would have guessed, about 12% in the USA when I would have guessed 5%. I live in a city.
I don't know why suddenly the bar for comparison is the world generally decades ago. We were comparing countries. My point stands, most European countries have higher smoking rates than in the US. Even if there are a few exceptions.