No Smoking

On the top: badass Sanji with his cigarette.
Below: badbutt Sanji with his... lollipop.

Carrot: We do thank people for not smoking in here, sir.
Vimes: Why? You don't know they're not going to.

— The Fifth Elephant

Censors come off as pretty lax when it comes to anything that isn't excessively gruesome or explicit. One notable exception is broadcasters seeming squeamish about showing underage characters smoking tobacco (even delinquents) especially if the show is aimed at a school-age audience. Occasionally this is changed to chewing something.

The same can hold for underage drinking, unless it's accidental. This gag used to be popular in the United States until Media Watchdogs cracked down on theatrical cartoons.

One anecdote claims that only R.A.T.s (Russians, Arabs, and Terrorists) are permitted to smoke in Hollywood movies. Some extend this to the French as well (R.A.F.T.s). In short, exotic villains are allowed to smoke.

Modern U.S. law dictates in what instances cigarette smoking may appear, coming down hardest on animation or other programming intended for minors. For versions meant for broadcast before the Watershed in the U.S., this trope is practically mandated. This can also mean that DVD versions culled straight from the broadcast version also have this trope in effect. Strangely, the law is vaguer on cigar and pipe smoking; how much those are edited can vary (and to this day even G-rated icons like Santa Claus may be depicted with a pipe). Likewise, depictions of smoking pot seem to be all over the place; it's not uncommon for made-for-cable series (i.e. those not restricted by watershed and FCC rules) to show pot-smoking in abundance, but tobacco cigarettes are totally absent.

This trope is also a particular case of Values Dissonance, as anti-smoking laws didn't really come into effect until the early 2000s. Before then, smoking was considered to be socially acceptable, with some even believing that smoking was actually good for the human body. Seriously.

A Sub-Trope of Bowdlerize.

When this trope applies to source materials, then it should go to Smoking Is Not Cool. If the character doesn't smoke in the source material, then they may be (but not necessarily) The Teetotaler.

Compare Frothy Mugs of Water, Drunk on Milk, Bubble Pipe, and Family-Friendly Firearms. Contrast with Smoking Is Cool.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Camo the ermine in Negima! Magister Negi Magi occasionally takes a drag from a cigarette as a visual gag. In the anime, they are all inexplicably labeled "chocolate", though this label is removed in the DVD release.
• In the Strawberry Marshmallow manga, Nobue is 16 years old. Her age is inexplicably given as 20 for the anime, likely to give her otherwise identical TV incarnation permission to smoke on screen.
• In Love Hina, Haruka is never without what seems to be a cigarette in her mouth, but never actually seems to smoke it.
• In the TV series of Cromartie High School, the cigarettes smoked by the teenage characters are changed to pastel-colored sticks with blobs of CG dancing on the end or marshmallows burning at the ends of sticks. The one exception to this is Masked Takenouchi, who is actually in his 30s.
• A particularly interesting example is Shaman King. In the manga, Kanna Bismarck is constantly seen with a cigarette in her mouth, because her cigarette smoke is the medium she uses to form her over souls. Without her cigarettes, she can't materialize her spirit ally, and therefore can't fight. In the 4Kids dub, her cigarettes are removed, which creates an enormous plot hole.
  • In the manga, Ryu smoked as well. However, since he was underaged, the habit was removed.
• Madoka Ayukawa in Kimagure Orange Road is shown smoking early in the series, but eventually quits after being upbraided about it repeatedly by Kyosuke. And early on Kyosuke uses his secret telekinesis to ruin a cigarette Madoka's about to smoke.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • In the anime version, Yusuke Urameshi still skips school, has bad grades and gets into a lot of fights. But unlike in the manga, he doesn't smoke, drink or gamble (or at least is never seen doing these things). In both manga and anime, he wins a fight in pitch darkness by sneaking a cigarette onto his enemy's belt and aiming for it with his Spirit Gun; it's his cigarette in the manga and Old Master Genkai's in the anime (who isn't seen smoking at any other point).
  • One other change is in Chapter 17/Episode 5. In the manga, a gang leader who is blackmailing Kuwabara with threats to harm a kitten threatens to put out its eye with his lit cigarette. In the anime, he threatens to kill it with a broken bottle.
  • In the manga when Yusuke starts back tracking through his day, we see him smoking on the roof and later he lights up when leaving school grounds. These instances are replaced by him eating some sort of chip snack.
• One Piece:
  • While Sanji still smokes in the original anime, it's only mentioned in the manga that he started at the age of 10. Additionally, guidebooks related to the anime state that Sanji's age is 20, one year older than in the manga, which is what the network defines as an "adult".
  • The 4Kids dub infamously changed the cigarette to a lollipop. Ironically, its version of Sanji had a craggy, nasally voice that sounded like a life-long chain smoker. Meanwhile, Captain Smoker—now called 'Chaser'—had all of his cigars digitally removed despite originally carrying so many that it looked like he had cigar ammo belts. Made even more painful by the fact that he never fully closes his mouth, with his teeth chomping down on his cigar. Without the cigar, it looks like he's got a nasty case of lockjaw.
  • 4Kids weren't the only ones to think of censoring Sanji's cigarette into a lollipop, the South Korean did the same thing, only they just simply put a circle over the cigarette and called it a day.
  • The initial broadcast version of the Funimation dub entirely removed Sanji's cigarette. Although it came off the air before Smoker appeared, Funimation were on the record that (keeping the same rule then applied to Naruto) he would still have the cigars, they just wouldn't be lit. All future releases of their dub were on DVD, streaming, or [adult swim], and thus completely unedited.
• Cartoon Network's airing of the Blue Submarine No. 6 OVA featured some of the more bizarre examples of this practice. At different times, censors either replaced protagonist Tetsu Hayami's cigarettes with more innocuous objects or removed them completely. This resulted in a scene in which he discards a toothpick, steps on it, then immediately reaches into his jacket for another, and several in which tufts of smoke spontaneously appear several inches in front of his face.
• In the Reborn! (2004) manga, 15-year-old Gokudera is occasionally seen with cigarettes, which he uses to light the fuses on his dynamite. Since the anime adaptation was aired at a time most younger viewers would catch it, this was written out entirely; the dynamite now lights itself.
• The manga version of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo had a living box of cigarettes with living cigarettes living inside of him as a minion for "boss character" Purupuu. (coincidentally, his name is the Japanese way of saying "No Smoking") The anime was forced to change him into a box of chocolate sticks.
• The manga and anime AKIRA features delinquent kids who drink alcohol, take amphetamines, get into fights, have sex, ride motorcycles and wield massive guns, but for whatever reason, none of them smoke. There is one scene where a girl puts a cigarette in Kaneda's mouth, but he immediately spits it out.
• Naruto:
  • A 16-year-old Shikamaru (temporarily) picks up smoking in the manga in memory of Asuma, even though he expresses that he doesn't even like it. However, in the anime he doesn't and the scene where he throws a lit cigarette to light the explosive tags around Hidan is changed to him throwing the lighter he used in the manga.
  • Asuma's smoking on the Cartoon Network broadcast was an oddly downplayed example: the cigarette is still there it's just not lit. This appears to be a common rule, though it's usually just applied to cigars.
• In the anime adaption of GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class, chain smoker Sasamoto-sensei has been seen to ask Usami-sensei to buy her cigarettes, but not for one second we've saw her smoking.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga (the original one that "season 0" is based on) Joey smokes constantly. The anime apparently tried to keep this tradition, but it was nixed by the censors, so due to some editing Joey randomly SIGHS a lot (sometimes the smoke isn't even edited out).
• In Digimon Tamers, Yamaki is frequently shown carrying a lighter, and at one point we see an ashtray full of cigarettes. We never actually see him smoke. It's implied that he's trying to quit.
• In Dragon Ball and its sequel, Bulma's father Mr. Briefs is a chain smoker who takes a drag in nearly every scene he's in. The English broadcast version removed every frame of his cigarettes.
  • Bulma herself is seen smoking some in the manga, but barely does it at all in the anime, even when the shots are otherwise drawn exactly the same.
• Despite being a smoker for over 40 years in the manga, Golgo 13 doesn't smoke in the TV series.
• In the Gosick light novels Victorique is an underaged smoker, and has a raspy voice as a result. In the anime version she's just seen holding, and occasionally sucking on an ornate pipe, but never lighting it up, since the Japanese censorship laws forbid showing underaged characters smoking or drinking alcohol in public television series.
• In Doctor Slump, Taro's smoking was omitted in the anime adaptation. When Viz translated the manga, for a while, they kept Taro's smoking, but was edited out in later editions. Senbei, while he still smoked, was not shown doing it as often as he did in the manga.
• Kaoru in I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying isn't shown smoking or even mentioned to be a smoker for the first half of season 1. This becomes a problem when she's told she needs to quit smoking in episode 6. Flashback episodes don't have any trouble showing her smoking though.
• Middle schooler Fumiya is shown smoking several times in the Wandering Son manga. He's never shown smoking in the anime adaptation.
• Lucia from Venus Versus Virus smokes a lot in the manga, and it's a somewhat big deal when she quits. She's only fifteen (she looks older though) and thus the smoking was left out of the anime.
• The televised version of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure takes this to new heights of absurdity, since the teenaged Jotaro's smoking is covered up with a Censor Shadow, but it's not cut out completely because it's integral to the plot on several occasions, such as the battles with the Moon stand^note Jotaro reveals the user's identity by claiming that cigarette smoke makes a vein stand out on Stand Users' noses, then watches to see who among the ship's crew reacts and Daniel J. D'Arby^note Where Jotaro has Star Platinum light his cigarette using Super-Speed as part of his efforts to psych out D'Arby. People still talk about Jotaro smoking, and it's still blatantly obvious that that's what he's doing, but apparently a pitch-black shadow lazily draped over the lower half of his face (and nothing else) is enough to satisfy the censors. The DVD and Blu-ray releases are uncensored.
  • The Oingo & Boingo episode is probably the worst in this regard. Oingo, one of DIO's assassins, almost gets caught by the good guys and is forced to impersonate Jotaro for a while. When he smokes there aren't any censor shadows at all, presumably because he's an adult, but he still has Jotaro's face — the exact thing the censor shadows were trying to hide. In fact, the episode even draws special attention to it when Polnareff says "do that trick with the cigarette again" and Oingo-taro holds a lit cigarette in his mouth for a few seconds. So the episode not only shows "Jotaro" smoking, it outright admits that he does, rendering all the censorship patently absurd; it seems that as long as the kiddies don't see a cigarette on the lips of a teenager, the censors didn't care.
• The new important characters of Lupin III: The Italian Adventure don't smoke. Justified as they're European and would have different ideas about smoking compared to the characters from the original series (all Japanese).
• In the first chapter of My Hero Academia, Bakugo scolds his friends for smoking out of fear that his reputation as a hero would be at risk if he got the smell on him. In the anime, it was changed to his friends suggesting they sneak into a bar to flirt with women. Said friend's cigarette also caused a huge fire surrounding the Sludge monster that attacked Bakugo, but it was changed to him losing control of his Explosion Quirk.
• Kana from Parasyte was more of a tomboyish delinquent in the manga, with one of her traits including smoking. In the anime, she was given an Adaptation Personality Change so that her delinquent traits would be toned down.
• In the Fruits Basket manga and 2001 anime adaptation, characters are sometimes seen smoking, particularly Shigure and Hatori (with Shigure typically doing it when he's showing his more manipulative side). In the 2019 anime, none of the characters are ever shown smoking. Creator Natsuki Takaya, who supervises the 2019 anime, explained that she decided not to have any characters smoke due to "modern regulations" and that since the original manga was published in 1998, it was a product of a different time.
• Parodied in Gintama. While the explicit adults are shown smoking, and later seasons would be aired at times where kids wouldn't be able to watch, this trope is given a send-up in the Teach Me! Ginpachi-sensei omakes. When asked about the white stick in his mouth, which clearly has smoke coming out of the end, Ginpachi-sensei pulls it out and shows the audience it's a lollipop. As for the smoke? That's just the result of twiddling it in his mouth too much.
• Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: In the light novels, Naomasa smokes a kiseru, a Japanese pipe. In the anime, she instead holds a hex key in her mouth like a pipe to highlight her role as a mechanic.

Comedy

• Steve Martin had a variant in one of his routines."A fellow came up to me and said 'Excuse me. Mind if I smoke?' And I said, 'Not at all. Mind if I fart?'"

Comic Books

• When Joe Quesada became editor-in-chief of Marvel comics, he banned characters from smoking, which includes several characters like Wolverine, J. Jonah Jameson, and Nick Fury. He apparently did it because his father died from lung cancer.
  • Doctor Strange smoked cigarettes, in keeping with his 1960s origins. In a "From the Marvel Vault" story which recreated parts of an early issue panel-for-panel, Strange kept his cigarette but was surprised to find it in his hand, since he'd quit long ago and had just refused one from another character. It turned out to be magic loose in the house, which he eventually tracked down and stopped.
  • The ban continues to this day. The sole exception is that Reed Richards is occasionally allowed to smoke a pipe in flashback scenes set sufficiently far in the past.
• Lucky Luke used to have a cigarette in his mouth at almost all times, only to eventually replace it with a straw. The artist, Morris, ended up lauded by no less than the World Health Organization as a result. While cigarets were never removed from the animated films Daisy Town and Ballad of the Daltons, the 1983/1991 animated series followed suit.
• In MadroX: Multiple Choice limited series Jamie Madrox was supposed to be holding a cigarette in one panel, but that was removed. However, right after that a woman kisses him, then comments that he tastes like candy, to which Jamie responds that it was a chocolate cigarette. With the cigarette removed from the picture, this exchange makes little sense.
• Since late 2016, in the Mickey Mouse comics made in Italy, Detective Casey doesn't smoke cigars anymore. Most of the stories drawn before the ban that were still unpublished had the cigar edited out, with only a few artists replacing it with a lollipop.

Fan Works

• Jet of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the badass embodiment of teenage rebellion, is rarely seen without a twig, buckwheat, etc. hanging from his mouth. This is referenced in the Avatar: The Abridged Series episode that covers Jet's introduction. After he's hypnotized by the Dai-Li, he kicks the habit, a possible reference to the use of hypnosis to reduce or eliminate cigarette cravings.

Films — Animation

• On the original DVD releases (save for the 2000s UK DVD release of the latter) of Saludos Amigos and Melody Time, Disney removed scenes of Goofy and Pecos Bill smoking cigarettes.

Films — Live-Action

• In India, films and TV shows must have their smoking scenes removed, or display a public service announcement if the smoking isn't edited out. For this reason, Woody Allen refused to release his film Blue Jasmine in India. Badass anti-heroes used to smoke regularly in older films (e.g. Rajinikanth, whose stylish way of lighting up made him a superstar) but now things have considerably become rarer (and Raijinkanth uses chewing gum instead).
• In 2007, Disney banned smoking in all of its films, later extending it to Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm in 2015. Even in Saving Mr. Banks, Tom Hanks wasn't allowed to smoke on-screen, even though he was playing Walt Disney himself, who was known to be a heavy smoker in real life (they do play with the trope a bit by showing Walt frantically snuffing out a cigarette, saying that he doesn't want to be seen smoking in public). However, a few instances of smoking in Disney movies have occurred since then. For example, in Alice in Wonderland (2010), Absalom the Caterpillar is clearly shown smoking a hookah, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, where we see several people smoke (though this is because it's set in 1969 and a collaboration with Paramount, who are more lenient, even if a little bit, with smoking).
• The movie version of Watchmen cut out all instances of cigarette use (though the Comedian does still smoke, mostly cigars), making Laurie look a bit stupid for randomly pressing the flame button on the Owl ship (in the comic, she pressed the flame button because she mistook it for a cigarette lighter), though this was because the actress didn't want to smoke. In the extended edition, an agent does offer her a cigarette.
• The James Bond franchise:
  • James was at first a "heavy" smoker (back when anyone who didn't smoke two packs a day of unfiltered Camels was considered a girly-man). He hasn't smoked a cigarette on-camera in years, and mentioned it as a bad habit in Tomorrow Never Dies (though that one may have been a joint).
  • Licence to Kill keeps the smoking — but, due to Product Placement, added a Surgeon General's Warning to the end credits.
  • One of the post-Goldeneye revival novels by John Gardner gave a nod to this by mentioning in passing that Bond has started to cut down on smoking, and drinking for that matter; despite still having a deliberately Vague Age, he's explicitly not as young as he was and having to put some effort into passing his physical-fitness assessments.
  • Roger Moore opted not to smoke cigarettes, but did smoke cigars in his Bond films.
  • Die Another Day has Bond, and a contact, smoking cigars. They were in Cuba at the time, which may have been a factor.
• Superman Returns is an interesting example — it's a belated sequel to Superman: The Movie and Superman II, both of which feature Lois Lane smoking (despite Superman quipping that she shouldn't). In this film, she's supposed to be quitting; on two occasions she tries to light up in private, but both times Superman shows up, and the wind from him landing blows her matches out before she can.
• Constantine (2005) ends with John quitting smoking after his cancer scare, whereas the Hellblazer "Dangerous Habits" arc it's based on ended with him triumphantly lighting up because he'd won, and the cancer wasn't a problem any more.
• Despite Thank You for Smoking being about smoking, no one ever actually smokes in the entire movie; the closest we get is the Captain holding an unlit cigar, and Nick reaching into his pack of cigarettes only for it to be empty.
  • The censorship part of this trope is parodied later. After the events of the movie Senator Finistirre is still hard at work, attempting to censor cigarettes in old movies by covering them with bananas and other ludicrous objects. The movies are in black and white and the replacement objects are in color, making the it even more absurd.
• Released in 1971, the film, Cold Turkey was about a publicity stunt by a tobacco company offering $25,000,000 to any town that could go 30 days without smoking. Some characters are accidentally shot trying to have a smoke.
• For The Batman (2022), despite Colin Farrell's lobbying, Warner Bros. refused to have the Penguin smoke a cigar, making it the few cases outside of the comics the Penguin isn't smoking (see the Western Animation folder in Execptions below)

Literature

• In The Ghost from Grand Banks by Arthur C. Clarke, one of the characters has a job digitally removing smoking from old movies. This is for commercial reasons: anti-smoking sentiment has become so strong that people will refuse to watch films which have smoking.

Live-Action TV

• That '70s Show:
  • You never see anyone actually smoke marijuana, but it is implied during those "circle talk" scenes where the characters are in the basement of Eric's house, there's white smoke everywhere, and the characters are acting very ditzy and out of it (and, in some of the later episodes, Tommy Chong's character is there, so that's an obvious sign that they're smoking weed). Word of God states the whole point to the circular filming style of such scenes was so the camera would be on whoever just took a puff and passed the joint on.
  • There's one episode dedicated to the fact that neither Eric nor Donna smoke tobacco cigarettes, but a gag in an earlier episode revealed that Kitty and at least one of Eric's friends do (one of them provides her with a cigarette, but only their hand is visible). Kitty, at least, had quit but needed a fix, explaining why she isn't regularly seen smoking. As for the kid(s), it probably falls in line with this trope.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • An in-universe example, which also doubles as this for the (assumed) censorship of the network: Ted tells his kids about his college days spent "eating a sandwich", and while the show shows us people eating sandwiches, it's clear that they're smoking marijuana.
  • One episode discusses this where Future Ted's story does not make sense and he admits that Robyn did not go to the roof to think but actually to smoke. He has been omitting that all of them smoked since it was not relevant to the stories he was telling and he was embarrassed to mention it to his kids.
• The title character in Sherlock — a Setting Update of a character whose pipe is an Iconic Item — is on the patch, claiming it's impossible to smoke in London these days. In a nod to the original he refers to a "three patch problem". Sherlock's nicotine addiction is also a nod to the original's cocaine habit.
• Played for Laughs by the panel in an episode of QI, when a specific photo came up. It showed a Frenchman who'd obviously been smoking a cigarette that had been airbrushed out, making it look like he was flicking the V-Sign instead.
• An episode of iZombie had Olivia taking on the personality of a stoner. Surprisingly for a pre-watershed show, she is shown very briefly smoking from a bong. But other than this she spends most of the episode sucking on a pot-infused lollipop to avoid having to show her smoking anything. Except for the bong gag, the series follows the general standard of not showing any characters smoking anything, even the undead characters.
• Gotham establishes that Barbara is a pot user by showing her trying to clear the air and carrying an ashtray in one scene (as her ex-girlfriend calls her out on it), but otherwise she isn't shown smoking anything.
• One of Cruella de Vil's trademarks in 101 Dalmatians is her long smoke pipe. When a live-action version of the character appeared in Once Upon a Time, the pipe is nowhere to be found. Ironically, while one politically incorrect aspect of the character was suppressed, her habit of wearing a fur coat made from her own dogs was retained.
• Potentially lampshaded in an episode of House when Dr. House actually prescribes tobacco cigarettes to a man for medicinal reasons. The patient is never shown actually taking the "medicine," however.
• Sky One's Discworld TV movie adaptations:
  • Going Postal goes partway with this: in the original novel, Adora smokes like a chimney, and this is both an important part of her character and part of why the protagonist is attracted to her. The adaptation doesn't remove her smoking, but relegates it to a coping mechanism as a result of her family being scammed and dispossessed of the company they founded, and at the end when she regains financial control she stops smoking, something her book self would never consider.
  • In Hogfather, Albert, who constantly has a roll-up dangling from his mouth in the books, is shown repeatedly trying to roll a cigarette and failing. At the very end he succeeds, takes one puff, grimaces, and throws it away.
• Because tobacco advertising is banned on Australian television, The Gruen Transfer could not even show any historic ads when discussing tobacco advertising. Lampshaded when Wil introduced several ads before throwing to shot of a completely unrelated product, before then explaining what was going on.
• South Korea does not permit smoking to be shown on television, so any films and television shows — both domestic and foreign — with characters smoking are always broadcast with a mosaic blurring that pops up and covers the cigarette/cigar/pipe whenever it's in a character's mouth. But the mosaic blurring is skipped on any unlit cigarette/cigar/pipe in a mouth.

Music

• The song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" originally had the woman saying she'll stay for "just a cigarette more." Modern versions sometimes change it so that her previous "half a drink more" line is repeated instead.
• Remember, kids, "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" has "peppermint trees", not "cigarette trees".

Music Videos

• A version of the music video for Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract censors the scene in which Skat Kat smokes (but not the lyrics that talk about smoking).
• The Muppets Viral Video of "Flowers on the Wall" comes up with three replacement lyrics for "Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo", one for each chorus.
  Likin' Instagrams and playin' tons of sudoku...
  Catchin' up on doin' all the things I wanted to...
  Mixin' chemical combustibles the whole night through...

Myths & Religion

• In 1642, Pope Innocent X issued a papal bull forbidding priests to "take tobacco in leaf, in powder, in smoke, by mouth or nostrils in any of the churches of Seville, nor throughout the archbishopric".
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints prophet and founder Joseph Smith (1805-1844) discouraged the use of Tobacco and smoking after his received a revelation from God on February 27, 1833 after witnessing his brethren smoking and chewing tobacco stating That "And again, Tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill." from Doctrine and Covenants 89 verse 8.
  • Another LDS prophet Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008) in his Church Conference talk in Salt Lake City, Utah "Converts and Young Men" discourages the use use of smoking and tobacco and states "Observe the Word of Wisdom. You cannot smoke; you must not smoke. You must not chew tobacco. You cannot drink liquor. You hold the priesthood of God. You must rise above these things which beckon with a seductive call." in an April 1997 talk.

Pro Wrestling

• A scene where R-Truth smoked in the O2 Arena (as well as commentator Josh Matthews making references to it) was cut from the UK airing of a Monday Night RAW, probably due to smoking in public buildings being illegal there. However, they kept John Morrison's "good shape for someone who smokes" comments in. Cutting the scene also meant cutting out the crowd's chants of "That's illegal!"

Tabletop Games

• Pinnacle Entertainment Group does not show smoking in any of their products, notably Deadlands.
  • Their guidelines for third-party licensees explicitly say not to include smoking. But it does happen from time to time, either through mistake or Getting Crap Past the Radar, like for a few pieces of character art in Deadlands: Doomtown.

Toys

• Mr. Potato Head used to come with a plastic tobacco pipe, which was retired in late 1987.
• Several characters in Tamagotchi have been seen smoking, which have been censored later on. Helmetchi (debuting on the Morino Tamagotchi) is missing his cigarette in Tap & Hatch. Memetchi's father, Memepapatchi, had a cigar in his original Japanese artwork, later replaced with a cup of coffee.

Video Games

• The American version of La Pucelle has censored out the character Croix's tendency to smoke, but only by deleting out the image of a cigarette. This results in him performing the bizarre animation of removing a cigarette that isn't there from his lips and then putting it back.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In T-Rated Final Fantasy VII, Cid Highwind smokes a cigarette; in fact, you can see a pack of cigarettes stuffed under his bandana on his character model, and he uses it to light a stick of dynamite in one of his Limit Breaks. In E-rated Kingdom Hearts he chews a piece of straw.
  • He spends most of his time in Dirge of Cerberus sans cigarette, to the point you might think he'd quit in the intervening time... until the end, when he lights up a victory smoke after blowing up a reactor.
  • Cid doesn't smoke in any promotinal material for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, nor does he have a pack of cigarettes on him.
• Badrach in Valkyrie Profile had his cigarette removed in the American version; his Finishing Move (in which he lit a bunch of explosions around his opponent with said cigarette) lost a bit of its effect.
• After the intro FMV in the Japanese release of Resident Evil, Chris Redfield is shown lighting a cigarette in the live cast intro and again in the Chris-only ending. Western releases, like the Bowdlerized FMV, replaced his intro with previous FMV footage of him which is why his intro is out of context compared to others. No other mention was made of him being a smoker until RE 6, which averted this trope by opening his scenario with a shot of him stubbing out the last of several cigarettes while drowning his sorrows in an Eastern European bar.
• In Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, Snake's cigarettes are replaced by a conspicuously shaped smoke emitting device called a "Fogger". This applies even in the Japanese version, where the cigarette substitute is referred by the less embarrassing name of "smoke emitter".
• Bejeweled 3's "zen mode" was apparently originally intended to help players quit smoking, but was changed to helping get rid of bad habits in general, because any reference at all to smoking would have given it a high Entertainment Software Rating Board rating.
• In Pokémon Gold and Silver, the original fisherman sprites had cigarettes in their mouths. It was removed in international versions.
• Due to UK laws against depicting smoking, Duke's cigar was removed from the box art of Duke Nukem Forever there. He doesn't look too happy about it.
• The [adult swim] version of the Meet the Pyro promotional video for Team Fortress 2 removes Spy's cigarette.
• Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 zig-zag this. The games are littered with cigarettes by the pack and by the carton, and many other characters smoke... but the Player Characters are unable to light up themselves. This would be less weird if the games weren't also littered with a huge amount of other drugs both real and fictional (that are still harmful and addictive in-universe), including tobacco chew in New Vegas, which the player can partake of.^note There are mods that rectify this.
• Final Fantasy VI has several female human enemies that can be seen holding a smoking pipe with smoke coming out of it, which is in the Japanese version. The English SNES version removed only the smoke itself, but the pipe remained. Later ports on the GBA, mobile, and Steam put the smoke back in.
• League of Legends character Graves' original splash art depicted him with a cigar in his mouth, but this cigar was later removed due to potential problems with censorship/age ratings. The League community picked up on the change, turning it into a long-running meme. He eventually got the cigar back, but in turn as stated in Legends of Runeterra, he's quit smoking altogether.
• In the original Japanese version of EarthBound Beginnings (known in Japan as MOTHER), the battle sprites of the Crow and B.B. Gang enemies depict them smoking cigarettes. The English version slightly edited both sprites to remove the cigarettes. Notably, game creator Shigesato Itoi approved of the change, and the subsequent Japanese releases of the game retained the edited sprites; Itoi himself had quit smoking around the time of the Compilation Re-release MOTHER 1+2 and wanted to reflect it in the game. The Japanese Virtual Console release of the game removes the cigarette from the Crow's sprite, but not the B.B. Gang's; presumably it was deemed OK for them because they're bad guys.
• The NES version of Bump 'n' Jump, when the car is undergoing repairs, uses the Japanese word "Haizara" instead of "Ashtray".

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • Purposefully used in Investigations. That little white cylinder in hardboiled detective Tyrell Badd's mouth is a lollipop stick. Those odd pauses in his dialogue are apparently when he sucks on it. (It's "purposefully used" because the lollipop is also in the Japanese version.)
  • Averted in TV producer/mobster Dee Vasquez, who carries around a cigarette holder and casually takes a puff from it in one of her animations.

Web Comics

• Parodied in chapter 6 of Apricot Cookie(s)!, when Apricot is buying bread from the convenience store. You can see a bystander holding a lighter as if he's lighting a cigarette, only for him to take it out in the next panel and reveal that it's actually a lollipop.

Web Original

• In Gaia Online, there was a lot of controversy when a staff member silently removed Cigarettes and Pipes from the virtual item stores. They were quickly brought back when this was brought attention to.

Western Animation

• In Downtown, Goat smoked, but after being transplanted into Megas XLR he just has a sucker.
• In one episode of Pepper Ann, the title character follows a friend who has been sneaking off to the bathroom and is horrified to find that said friend has taken up gum chewing.
• On some networks' airings of Looney Tunes, character's cigars and cigarettes are removed. A notable example is Rocky (of Rocky and Mugsy), who always has a cigarette in his mouth. Other networks kept these scenes intact.
• In Thailand, depictions of smoking are censored on TV, such as on The Simpsons as shown here. Yet apparently, bubble pipes are inappropriate, but opium pipes are OK.
• Some networks that air Tom and Jerry remove scenes where the duo smoke cigars and cigarettes.
• The Flintstones featured a number of ads for Winston cigarettes that show Fred and Barney smoking, even reciting the jingle: "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should."
• Lampshaded in Gravity Falls: A living wax dummy of Groucho Marx questions why he's not holding anything after making a Groucho-style witty comment, whereas the real Groucho Marx often had a cigar in hand during such moments.
• Jorel's Brother: In the original comic strips the series was based on, Granny Gigi was always seen smoking a cigarette as an Oral Fixation, which is a trait the series creator Juliano Enrico based on his own grandmother who inspired the character. However, when the show was greenlit for Cartoon Network, they forbid the show from portraying a character smoking a cigarette, especially due to said character being on the main cast, so the cigarette was replaced by a green lollipop.
• Another lampshaded example is in the Muppet Babies (1984) episode when Nanny occupies the babies during a power outage by having them listen to radio dramas from audio tapes on a battery-powered cassette player. When Bunson Honeydew and Beaker imagine themselves in a Sherlock Holmes radio drama, the former explains why he is blowing bubbles from his pipe when he imagines himself as the title character...
• The Batman: Year One DTV eliminates all the smoking from the original story (being a City Noir, almost all the good guys smoke except Batman himself).
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the original design of the gardener pony from "The Best Night Ever" had him smoking a tobacco pipe. This was nixed by the time the episode was animated, so in the episode as aired, he has a buckwheat in his mouth instead.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: Despite the fact that other characters can occasionally be seen smoking in some episodes, in the episode "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toon Christmas Special", when Plucky does a performance of "The Little Drummer Boy" with William Shatner, throughout the performance Shatner holds a pencil the way someone would hold a cigar; at one point he can be seen sucking on it as if to take a puff.
• In Looney Tunes Cartoons, Rocky's cigarette has been replaced with a toothpick. This toothpick also appears in Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem.
• In a Minerva Mink short on Animaniacs (1993), Minerva's blind date turns out to be a greaser. Since they weren't allowed to show him smoking, he shoves a lollipop in his mouth the second he first appears on screen and spends the rest of the short with the lollipop stick dangling cigarette-like from his mouth.
• Skatoony: In-Universe. Eagle-Eyes Tony/Charles La Puck has a sausage in his mouth in place of a cigarette.

Real Life

• In 1604, King James VI of Scotland and I of England wrote A Counterblaste to Tobacco, one of the first anti-tobacco publications.
• In Australia, "Big Boss Candy Cigars" were renamed "Candy Sticks", and the Big Boss character on the packaging was changed from smoking a cigar to carrying a bunch of dynamite sticks.
  • Other countries have done the same thing. In Canada, Popeye candy cigarettes became candy sticks. Bubble gum had also been wrapped in white paper similar to rolling paper and that has been discontinued.
• Similarly, "Fags"^note British/Australian slang for cigarettes, although the ''other'' meaning of "fag" was also part of the reason for renaming them were renamed "Fads" (and later, "Fads Fun Sticks") and the "lit up" red tips were eliminated.
  • The American versions zig-zag things by removing the red tip and calling themselves "candy sticks", but still come in boxes obviously meant to resemble a cigarette pack, complete with knockoff logos.
• Brazil had Chocolate Cigarettes, later changed to Chocolate Rolls◊, with the boy's hand retouched to be a thumbs up. (it has since been renamed to Chocopencils, which still exist)
• Many public places in the USA often have no smoking signs, including hospitals, restaurants, gas stations, stores, city buses, schools, airports, and train stations.
• Utah State USA is notable for the "Utah Indoor Clean Air Act" which was passed in 1993 to discourage smoking among minors and for those trying to give up smoking.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest denomination of Mormonism, has discouraged the use of smoking and tobacco since 1833. LDS church missionaries often ask non members to be willing to give up smoking before they can join the LDS church.
• When the U.S. issued a postage stamp of Robert Johnson the picture they used had a cigarette in his mouth. They removed it in the picture.^note There are very few verified photographs of Robert Johnson.

Exceptions

Anime & Manga

• Seventeen-year-old Mamimi smokes in FLCL, although she's portrayed as a somewhat troubled character. And it's an OVA anyway, so censors aren't a problem. When broadcast in English on [adult swim], the cigarettes were in not censored (or changed into a lollipop like the picture).
• A few characters are seen smoking in Great Teacher Onizuka. In the manga almost all the male students smoke and a few girls also.
• In Love Hina, Seta does, in fact, smoke all the time; this makes the Haruka example even odder.
• Saki from Genshiken is in her late teens and is seen smoking in her first appearance.
  • She does give it up though after she accidentally sets fire to a massive pile of manga and doujin. She has nightmares about it afterwards, too. Afterwards, you never see her smoking again; nobody really seems to comment on it, though.
• The mid-to-late teen protagonists of Hot Gimmick go to a club and buy lots of alcohol, although the series hangs a winking lampshade on it, with sarcastically phrased narration bubbles constantly imploring "don't mean to nag, but teenagers shouldn't be drinking alcohol".
• Wolfwood from Trigun smokes like a chimney, and always has a dogend in his mouth in all of his appearances.
• Several characters on Gintama are seen smoking, though many of them are implied to be of legal age to do so. Even the JUMP Festa OVA version of Ginpachi-sensei was changed to have him actually smoking in class, as opposed to the canonical spoof in the "Examples" section.
• Admittedly only a manga example, where censorship is obviously less prevalent, but still a rather amusing one. In Yotsuba&!, Torako is a friend of Asagi's who regularly smokes. When we first meet her formally, Yotsuba tells her that her father says smoking is bad, and then asks Torako why she smokes. Torako simply replies "Because I wanna." Yotsuba immediately considers her really cool. On the Japanese Wikipedia, that Torako smokes is cited as a reason to believe she and Asagi are at least 20 years old.
• Several characters in Spirited Away, including bathhouse owner Yubaba and a frogman smoke, and it was kept. For one thing, it adds to the theme of the bathhouse being filled with people with character flaws, and none of the characters who do so are attractive enough to make smoking look cool.
• Porco Rosso smokes copiously.
• Averted in Fullmetal Alchemist with Jean Havoc, hero and chain smoker. The mangaka made him a smoker for the express reason that it would give him a reason to be carrying the lighter necessary for Roy's pwnage of Lust.
• The then-preteen Fumiya once offered the protagonist of Wandering Son a cigarette while lighting up (in (a) church); Nitori politely refuses. Shii, Yuki's boyfriend, is often depicted smoking and Yuki herself was shown smoking once.
• Shiiki No Juunin is about a green haired Japanese Delinquent middle schooler who smokes.
• The landlady in Hidamari Sketch is often seen to smoke, to a semi-Once an Episode degree.
• Soul Eater's Professor Stein can be seen smoking in almost every episode he's in, which is a lot considering he's a main character. Giriko is a heavy drinker AND smoker. Some of the monsters of the week are seen smoking, too.
• Tyki Mikk and Cross Marian in D.Gray-Man are both chain smokers. Tyki's a villain, but Cross is at least partially heroic.
• Fee Carmichael from Planetes is a habitual smoker, but is generally unable to because oxygen is a precious commodity on space stations and space ships, so she has to do so in either a special smoking room or the little booth she constructed in the Debris Section office. She still manages to smoke every so often.
  • One cigarette uses at most the same amount of oxygen as 10 Cal of food does - you're physically unable to smoke because the tobacco turns into flashpaper in high oxygen environs. (and fire hazards and delicate equipment too)
• Midou Ban from both the manga and anime of Get Backers — while they toned down his Lovable Sex Maniac tendencies heavily for the anime, they certainly kept the smoking. He's also specifically underage in the manga (18; Japan's legal age on drinking/smoking/voting is 20).
• Lupin III:
  • Jigen is a chain smoker. Other characters, including Lupin himself and Inspector Zenigata, are partial to the occasional cigarette. Fujiko also occasionally lights up, and often does the requisite sexy pose. And a number of villains have been seen smoking nasty cigars.
  • As mentioned above, Lupin, his gang and Zenigata still smoke even in Lupin III: The Italian Adventure, and a one-shot Italian character does so too, in spite of the series having been partially produced in Italy. Justified, as smoking (and the specific brands) are an inherent part of the original Lupin III characters and the one Italian smoker is a delinquent student who does it to rebel (he's underage). Some background characters are also shown smoking. After all, Italians still have many smokers...
• Despite its undeserved reputation as a bowlderised anime, there were numerous scenes of characters lighting up in Robotech. Captain Gloval, Roy Fokker, Admiral Hayes, Rolf Emerson, and Lunk are main characters who have all lit up onscreen. In one Macross Saga episode, a Zentraedi was explicitly seen enjoying a Zentraedi sized cigarette commenting: "Hmmm....You Micronians live well.". 1985 was a time when the "No tobacco/alchohol" rule was observed by American cartoons, so the fact that these scenes were left intact was miraculous.
• When Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was translated to G-Force: Guardians of Space, several instances of Evil Smoking were kept.
  • In episode #83, "Web of Danger", the web master's cigarette was a (smokeable) gadget in disguise, so avoiding No Smoking kept the plot intact.
• The Death Note anime is the odd exception to the No Smoking rule considering the series is technically Shōnen — 19-year-old Ensemble Dark Horse Matt has a cigarette in his mouth when he's gunned down by the Japanese police.

Films — Animation

• Disney may not censor all smoking scenes in classic animated films, such as Pinocchio and 101 Dalmatians. However, they do often put in PSAs before the film in which movie footage is edited and reused as part of a short anti-smoking PSA. Two Examples (starring characters from the two aforementioned films) can be found here.

Films — Live-Action

• Thank You for Smoking:
  • Though we see a few smoke-filled rooms, we never actually see anyone smoke, even though the protagonist's life is ironically saved by his hardcore habit. His high tolerance saved him from what would have otherwise been a lethal dose of nicotine patches at the hands of a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
  • Subverted in a deleted scene soon after the incident in question, where the main character is told he can never smoke again without severe risks, as a side effect. He picks up a cigarette, puts it to his mouth — and instantaneously falls unconscious before being able to light up.
• Bizzarely, there was a concern during the shooting of The Lord of the Rings about New Line Cinema vetoing the scenes of Gandalf smoking a pipe. The Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition DVD even shows Peter Jackson filming scenes where Gandalf munches on some sort of candy instead. However, the studio never raised any objections and all characters, Gandalf included, went on to smoke their pipes on-screen.
• The LDS motion picture studios is notable for anti-smoking Mormon church films including As the Twig Is Bent (1957), where a father struggles to quit smoking; Time Pulls the Trigger (1963), where the people review the dangers of cigarette smoking in the film room; Up in Smoke, where a young man is pressured by the tobacco company boss to accept smoking which he refuses to accept and imagines the tobacco posters ads of the cigarettes having a negative effect on the people.
• Strangely averted with Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front, where Molly's father James is seen using a pipe. It gets a free pass as the film took place during World War II when tobacco use was seen as socially acceptable, to the point that even doctors themselves, perhaps including James McIntire, were paid by tobacco companies to vouch for a particular brand of cigarette.

Live-Action TV

• Constantine, being a network show, originally was unable to have the main character smoking. They worked rather cleverly around it, by showing him stubbing a burned-out cigarette into an ashtray full of them, putting a cigarette into his mouth only to be interrupted and smoking with his back to the camera. As the series progresses, though, he starts smoking on-screen openly.

Literature

• Averted in Disney Fairies despite being a modern Disney product. Captain Hook being a smoker is kept. In Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg, the fairies must take his double cigar holder to Kyto the dragon as a bribe in order to fix Mother Dove's egg.

Myths & Religion

• In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' Doctrine and Covenants Section 89 states that tobacco can be used as a herb for sick livestock but is not meant for human use by practitioners of the faith as part of "The Word of Wisdom".
  • Historically "The Word of Wisdom" was not heavily enforced through-out Mormonism until the early 1900's. Although there was lots of encouragement to follow it through-out the 1800's (with Brigham Young notably giving up tobacco) it wasn't explicitly required either (Joseph Smith himself did continue to drink alcohol until his death, and the Mormon Pioneers in Utah established whiskey distilleries, drank coffee and smoked/chewed tobacco as well). This results in some Values Dissonance where modern Latter-Day Saints are often surprised by mentions of smoking in historical works regarding the faith in the 1800s.^note Some values dissonance occurred even in the late 1800's though as drinking wine for sacrament service was still commonplace in the faith even as alcohol was beginning to be shunned elsewhere. This lead to people humorously asking then church president John Taylor (and a survivor of the 1844 mob assassination which had killed Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum) if the reason Joseph had wine with him in Carthage Jail was to perform a final sacrament. To which John Taylor bluntly pointed out that there was an angry mob coming to murder him and the men were drinking the wine to get drunk to dull the pain from the hail of bullets they were expecting to endure. The advent of the Prohibition movement in the 1900's was what finally pushed the modern practice of a hard stance on no-smoking & no-drinking in the faith to becoming standard, when under Heber C. Kimball the decision to make living the Word of Wisdom a prerequisite to entering the faith's temples was fully canonized.

Video Games

• The Nintendo Company once banned or censored cigarette smoking for American releases during the 1980s and 1990s in order to discourage smoking to kids and families.
• Bill in Left 4 Dead smokes a cigarette even when he's kicking some zombie ass. Even if he gets killed in the game, the cigarette never leaves his mouth, although it doesn't stay lit when he dies. In the No Mercy campaign, Bill will say "That's a crock of shit!" when he spots a no smoking sign. The teaser trailer for The Sacrifice DLC shows Bill lighting up a cigarette and offers Zoey some. In the comic version of The Sacrifice, Bill is seen lighting up a molotov with his cigarette to take down a Tank that is aproaching the bridge.
• In the SNES game of Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie's Kong's Double Trouble there is a bear named Barnacle Bear that can be seen smoking a tobacco pipe.
• Somehow, Faxanadu managed to slip by Nintendo's incredibly stringent censorship policies of yesteryear, as plenty of NPCs, such as the keymakers, can be seen smoking in the towns you visit.
• In the SNES version of Final Fantasy VI there are enemies named Dahling that can be seen holding cigarette pipes in their hand, even though the smoke has been removed.
• In Kirby Super Star, the boss Fatty Whale can be seen with a tobacco pipe in his mouth.
• In Bully a couple students and a few staff members can be seen smoking in some areas.
• In Monster Rancher 2, the Kato monster species was Bowdlerized from drinking lots of sake to having an obsession with drinking... olive oil. However, many monsters in that game can request that you buy them an item unique to their species... and the Kato's is still cigarettes.
• In Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, the shopkeepers smoke cigarettes.
• In Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers, the Monolith Burger owner throws a cigar out with Roger after firing him. Its smoke is later used to navigate a Laser Hallway.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers for the NES features the final boss, Fat Cat, attacking Chip and Dale with his projectile cigar ashes. It's unknown how it slipped past the Nintendo censorship.
• Although Snake can't smoke in-game in Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, he can be seen smoking in a few cutscenes.
• Nexus Clash has cigarettes that players can find and smoke. They do a few damage with each puff, so it's quite possible to smoke yourself to death in a few packs.
• Undertale typically allows characters to smoke normally, most prominently Burgerpants, except in one instance for comedic effect: Doggo smokes dog treats in the same way you would smoke a cigarette. You can even find some dog treat "butts" on the ground after you fight him.

Western Animation

• In The World of David the Gnome, the title character smokes dandelion fluff in an oversized pipe.
• An anti-smoking 1951 Disney's Goofy cartoon, "No Smoking", tells about the history of Tobacco. George Geef, who is a heavy smoker, decides to quit smoking and says "There, that was easy," but then realizes how difficult it is to break the habit.^Sidenote Goofy's voice actor, Pinto Colvig, like Walt Disney, was also a heavy smoker, and was an advocate for adding warning labels to cigarette packs. He died of lung cancer on October 3, 1967, less than a year after Walt died of the same thing.
• According to creators' commentary on Season 1 DVD, Cartoon Network S&P had had a huge problem with the Mooninites smoking in Aqua Teen Hunger Force, specifically the episode when they were introduced. Even if it was a late-night programming for adults, back then Adult Swim block wasn't considered a separate entity yet and they had to report to Cartoon Network. Creators Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro promised to remove the cigarettes only to disregard that and leave the episode as it is.
• The Cartoon Network and Boomerang airings of their old cartoons (Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Droopy, etc) mostly avert this by keeping a lot of the smoking in. They do edit some of the harder drug use though, like Sylvester the Cat in "The Last Hungry Cat" ingesting pills, chain-smoking and downing two cups of coffee. Scenes like this often get cut in reruns but is intact for the DVD releases.
• One early episode of Dexter's Laboratory surprisingly had a Greasy Spoon waitress unambiguously smoking a cigarette, complete with a smoke-trail. Sure, she only had a few seconds' worth of screen-time, but when you consider that even the exponentially Darker and Edgier Samurai Jack got no such breaks...
• The Penguin was allowed to keep his iconic cigarette holder in the original run of Batman: The Animated Series (possibly because the network executives were convinced kids wouldn't know what it was, anyway). The Season 4 revamp, however, played this trope straight by doing away with it, and even in later DC animated shows aimed for kids such as The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batwheels, and DC Super Hero Girls 2019 (for obvious reasons as many of the characters are portrayed as high school students), the Penguin doesn't have his cigarette holder at all. However, in more mature DC media, specifically Harley Quinn, he does still have his cigarette holder (although Batman: The Telltale Series and the Batman: Arkham Series have the Penguin smoke cigars instead, although he does have the cigarette holder in Batman: Arkham Asylum for his bio picture, most likely a case of Early-Installment Weirdness).
• Smoking was permissible in the earlier Nicktoons (The Ren & Stimpy Show and Rocko's Modern Life in particular), though later in the 90s they started to play this trope straight.

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