SO IS CANCER –
JULY 14, 2026 – So Cai, who was 30 and had “never touched a cigarette in my life” started occasionally indulging in “a little social cigarette.” And since that inaugural cig, she’s observed an upswing in smoking in her circles. “It’s the friends I would’ve never expected,” says Cai: “high-functioning, wonderful, successful people.”
Emily Atkin, a friend of mine and author of the climate crisis newsletter Heated, gauges the shift in public sentiment around smoking based on people’s reactions to her electric blue tank top emblazoned with the plea “PLS DO NOT GIVE ME A CIGARETTE NO MATTER WHAT I SAY.”
“It is by far my most attention-grabbing shirt,” she told me. Of course, she dons it to tempt enablers: “I wear it on nights when I know I might have a cigarette.” She’s noticed an uptick in people smoking outside the bars in Philly, where she lives, but it’s not just that: “In a more vibes-based way, I’m feeling less shame about my own desires to potentially want to have a cigarette.”
