Smoking

TODAY’S NUMBER I love finding a surprising number in The Times, some figure that informs beyond its series of digits. Today’s is worth dwelling on for a moment:

2.4 trillion — That is how many cigarettes are sold in China each year, nearly half the global total. Xi Jinping, the country’s president, may have quit smoking years ago. But his government hasn’t done much to help its constituents join him.

Cigarette sales are falling in most countries. In China, the numbers are going up. Smoking there rose 39 percent from 2003 to 2023, even as it fell 26 percent in the rest of the world. And while younger people are smoking less, older ones are smoking more, in part because it’s an inexpensive habit in China: A pack costs roughly $3. In contrast, if you want a pack of Marlboro Reds at my local bodega? That’ll be $20.

Joy Dong, who reported on all this from Hong Kong, says it shows how powerful China’s state tobacco company is. It’s a literal monopoly: A single agency both regulates the cigarette industry and makes most of the smokes.

The government’s brand, the China National Tobacco Corporation, generated roughly $244 billion in profit and tax revenue in 2025. That’s about 7 percent of national government revenue and nearly what China says it spends on defense. Big numbers!

Google Search, you can restrict restrict date range. **after:**yyyy-mm-dd **before:**yyyy-mm-dd

-ai-mode: remove Gemini AI at top of tesults (unofficial)

##Interesting Results https://search.brave.com/ask?q=smoking+-source%3Aai-mode&source=web&conversation=090fc9d0c7893c93f089498cdf68ab5c1c6

brave conversation is kept for 24 hours, then deleted

This PRESS Release from a Zyn owned by Phillip Morris promoted in Fox News
Tech startups hand out nicotine pouches as productivity perk — while doctors worry about addiction**
Tech startups chasing a productivity edge are handing out free nicotine pouches to employees — stocking office fridges and vending machines with flavored stimulants that workers say sharpen focus, even as doctors warn the habit risks hooking a new generation on the addictive drug.

Article in a Wired Magazine The Tech Bros Are All In on Zyn Stripped of the smoke, smell, and stigma of cigarettes and vapes, nicotine pouches are being quietly rebranded in Silicon Valley as a clean, nootropic stimulant rather than a dirty habit. US Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Trump appointee) has called pouches a safe alternative to smoking and appeared to furtively use them to get through his Senate confirmation meeting.

We must get drug vending machines and handing out drugs out of the workplace. 10:47

Normally I would use grok.com but it was unavailable for a week so question was posed to ChatGPT.com Responses from chatbots are private but a shared version can be saved which in itself is immune to charges, but later changes become private and are not shared.

Is New Jersey ahead of most of the nation in becoming smoke-free. What are the best wins and worst failures