Does Warm Weather Encourage Smoking?

We have a few nice days this week, with the temperature nearly 70 degrees (about 18 deg. C). So, I was walking around outside. But, in front of every office building were the ubiquitous smokers. With indoors smoking banned, they line up outside doorways, spewing second hand smoke in the midst of passers-by.

So, while I thought it should be an great day to enjoy the fall air, but instead, there was a heavy dose of second hand smoke along every sidewalk.

Now, I grew up during the “tobacco age” where smoking was normative. Adults might choose to “take up” smoking. I recall women declaring “I like a man who smokes!” as though nicotine addiction made a man more macho or handsome. Yuk!! Who wants to live with a man whose breath smells like an ashtray!

In my family, most adults smoked when I was a kid and every family gathering was blanketed in a blue haze of smoke. Amazingly I survived! But instead of “taking up the habit” I was strongly against the idea of smoking. Well, I’m glad the tobacco age is over, the health risks are well-known, and we now know smoking is one of the strongest drug addictions out there.

I’m always amazed at those addicts who persist. There are a couple of “professional smokers” in the building I work in. It seems they are always outside one door or another attending to their addiction, sometimes socializing with fellow addicts. I wonder if they actually do work in their office!

But this week got me wondering: does the good weather encourage smoking? Do the smokers come take additional breaks because it’s pleasant to stand outside? In that case, maybe cold and inclement weather is actually healthier – smokers lighting up less and non-smokers exposed to less second-hand smoke.