Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think Cigarette smoking became unpopular without heavy regulation. In countries that don’t have such restrictions, smoking is still ubiquitous.
The data [1] don't really show this. In particular as recently as 2001-2003 35% of young adults (in the US) said they smoked, versus an all-time historical high of 45% across all age groups for some context. By 2019 that figure was down to 10% for young adults. The first bans on advertising smoking went into effect in 1971! So what happened in the ~2000 era window of time? The internet and social media started explod…
“Throughout the early to mid-2000s, especially between 2004 and 2007, an increasing number of states enacted a statewide smoking ban of some kind.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_Un...