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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember this. Ashtrays were practically part of the furniture (especially coffee tables), even if you didn't have a smoker at home.
Elementary school children would make ashtrays as gifts for Father's Day. If dad didn't smoke, surely he had guests who did.
/j
> The real danger of allowing smoking on a hydrogen airship — and the reason it was strictly confined to the closely monitored smoking room — was the risk of a fire; I'd say... contrary, allowing smoking in a dedicated controlled place was the safer option. The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned - and back then, there were a looooot more smokers…
Your reply is reasonable. I've always thought the biggest problem to almost anything is human. We sometimes make the most thoughtless decisions and justify them with the flimsiest of excuses. We marvel at the stubbornness of two year-olds, then ignore ourselves.
Makes sense, "problem" is a human invention and without humans on the planet, there wouldn't really be any problems anymore.
> The real danger of allowing smoking on a hydrogen airship — and the reason it was strictly confined to the closely monitored smoking room — was the risk of a fire; I'd say... contrary, allowing smoking in a dedicated controlled place was the safer option. The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned - and back then, there were a looooot more smokers…
> The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned. This same concept is why full prohibition never works. People who want to do something will find a way and it often comes at the cost of being more harmful to society than if they were allowed to do it in a controlled environment.
It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.
Unfortunately we aren’t getting a handle on it because those friendly tobacco companies instead just pushed people to vaping instead.
It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.
Of course there were smoking and non-smoking sections on airplanes. The same air recirculated through the entire airplane, and the non-smoking section began the very next row after the smoking section.
It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.
Unfortunately we aren’t getting a handle on it because those friendly tobacco companies instead just pushed people to vaping instead.
The pouches are a totally different level of nicotine addiction. People will fall asleep with one in.
It’s really amazing just what extent people went to in order to smoke. Apparently people smoked on submarines for a while. And planes. And everywhere else. Smoking is just such a disease and it feels like only now are we kind of getting a handle on it.
More than ‘a while’. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4344412/:
“In the mid 1970s smoking was allowed virtually everywhere; by 2000 there were only two allowable smoking areas-each approximately 6 feet by 6 feet-one in the engine room and one up forward.
[…]
In 2009, a working group was established to prepare for a December 31, 2010 deadline for prohibiting smoking below decks on deployed submarines”
That paper also says:
“In 1993, based on reports of the dangers of secondhand smoke, Captain Stanley W. Bryant, the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, announced a ban on smoking aboard the ship starting in July 1993 and proposed eliminating tobacco from the ship's store. These actions elicited a strong and swift tobacco industry response. As described by Offen et al., tobacco friendly members of Congress challenged the policies and enough pressure was generated to force the reversal of both the ban on smoking and the prohibition of cigarette sales aboard the ship”
> The real danger of allowing smoking on a hydrogen airship — and the reason it was strictly confined to the closely monitored smoking room — was the risk of a fire; I'd say... contrary, allowing smoking in a dedicated controlled place was the safer option. The real danger was not allowing smoking because if you ban smoking, people will smoke no matter if it's banned - and back then, there were a looooot more smokers…
Ah. I always thought it was because of flexibility and timespan of airplane use, but it sounds like you are right! Thanks. TIL. https://simpleflying.com/why-airplnes-ashtrays-lavatories https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2026/04/28/airplane-as...
“Why are you reading out numbers to me like I am an old man”