Smoking 2.0: The Digitalisation of the World’s Most Harmful Habit

In 2019, we wrote about “digital smoking” here: e-cigarettes instead of fags, tobacco heaters like IQOS, the promise of “95 per cent less harmful”. What became of it? The vaping trend has stuck around, but the story has grown far more complicated. The 95 per cent claim is now considered outdated, disposable vapes are being phased out in droves, and the new cause for concern isn’t cigarettes-it’s young people hooked on vapes.

From a Fag to a Status Symbol

Sneaking a quick smoke behind the bushes used to be the height of cool, and many started as teenagers. The Weimar Republic, with its cafés and nightclubs-brought back to life by the TV series Babylon Berlin-shaped German smoking culture like no other era. The glamorous woman in her flapper dress would lazily light her cigarette with a long-stemmed holder, while in the trenches, the fag was seen as soul food. The image of the cool smoker was kept alive throughout the 20th century by stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, James Dean, and Marlon Brando, and in US shows well into the 2000s. “More doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette,” Camel advertised in the mid-century. What was long sold as a way of life is today, above all, the deadliest vice in the world.

How Bans and Taxes Pushed Smoking to the Brink

Surprisingly, smoke even clung on in the Bundestag until 1 September 2007, when federal buildings went smoke-free. Bavaria’s ban on smoking in restaurants took effect at the start of 2008 after being passed in late 2007, forcing smokers out into the freezing cold to bond over their shared habit. In-flight smoking ended in the mid-1990s, first on domestic routes, then on international ones. Massive tax hikes, campaigns, and bans worked: today, according to the Federal Statistical Office, only about one in five people smoke (19.1 percent), with men at 22.4 percent and women at 15.8 percent. The long-term trend is downward, though the rate has recently stagnated. If you’re already looking to live more consciously, check out our feature Eat the Rainbow.

What Became of “Digital Smoking”

Pressure on the tobacco industry grew, and countries like the UK, New Zealand, and Australia adopted hardline policies, making packs increasingly expensive. Enter e-cigarettes, vapes, and heated tobacco products. The switch is real: the WHO now counts over 100 million e-cigarette users worldwide. But the balance sheet is more nuanced than the promise of 2019. For adult smokers who fully switch, vaping is considered less harmful than tobacco, though it’s not harmless: documented risks include respiratory irritation, potential heart issues, and nicotine dependence. The oft-cited claim that vaping is “95 percent less harmful” comes from an expert assessment without long-term data and is now considered unsubstantiated. The British authority that popularized it has not existed since 2021.

Then there’s a new problem: disposable e-cigarettes. Cheap, colorful, and sweetly flavored, they’re especially appealing to teens. Belgium banned disposables on 1 January 2025, France followed in February, and the UK halted sales on 1 June 2025. EU-wide, single-use devices are set to disappear by the end of 2026, and Germany is working on its own ban. The drivers are environmental (built-in lithium batteries ending up in landfills) and youth protection. The 2019 US lung-injury scandal EVALI, which claimed nearly 70 lives, was traced to a cutting agent in illegal THC liquids-not regulated e-cigarettes.

Less harmful than cigarettes doesn’t mean harmless. And for teens, the colorful disposable vape is first and foremost a new, easy gateway into nicotine addiction.

So smoking reinvents itself every few decades-this time digitally. But harmful it remains. Today, the truly cool move is simply to quit. If you want to do something good for your body, small routines can help, like our ginger-orange immunity shots.