Standards and social functions

The tobacco industry's entire strategy over the past 20 years has been to normalize smoking behavior and make it socially acceptable. However, tobacco and everything that goes with it is denounced by a host of associations, some even going so far as to call it a "weapon of mass destruction". The power of tobacco professionals is such that this can lead to a certain reversal of values, since non-smokers can sometimes appear as the anti-social element who would deprive others of their freedom to smoke anywhere and at any time.

Research shows that the social environment plays a decisive role in smoking. The use of this drug, among others, is the fruit of the encounter between the product (with its specific properties and its place in society), a person (with his or her history and values) and a local context. 

Rather than submit to the manipulations of the cigarette market, it's important to inform yourself and manage your life as a responsible person. In recent years, the normative discourse that judged smokers negatively has evolved towards a much more informative discourse promoting health and well-being, which aims to enable us to make informed choices.

For young people, smoking is more a means of experimentation than a means of asserting themselves within the group. However, the school or family environment makes some young people more malleable to the simplifying discourses of the pleasure of being together, of being virile, of seduction...
Finally, some young people also smoke to pass certain milestones, like a ritual, between the forbidden and the permitted..., as if to be reborn later as an adult.

Without a doubt, tobacco is a "hit" in terms of reflections, advice, positions taken, regulations... !

For several years now, youth smoking prevention campaigns in the European Union have been aimed at changing the social norm from smoking to non-smoking. They have defined a long-term strategic framework based on local cultural and social needs. Generating change through various media and continuously evaluating the actions undertaken are among the priority health objectives of national and international authorities. The population itself seems to be fully aware of this and in favor of change, but the battle is still far from won.