A consumer group blamed public health lobby against vaping and aversion to innovation in the market for contributing to the return of smoking in the United States, with cigarette sales picking up in 2020 for the first time in two decades.

“If we want to reclaim a true public health victory and help smokers quit to give them long and fruitful lives, it is time to cast aside this aversion to the innovations of the market. The future health of our nation depends on it,” the Washington D.C.-based Consumer Choice Center said in its website.

“Smoking is up for the first time in a generation. The public health lobby is to blame,” said the CCC, a consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science and consumer choice. It focuses on main policy areas such as digital, mobility, lifestyle and consumer goods and health and science.

Top publications highlighted the “comeback” of cigarettes among the bourgeois hipster crowd in Brooklyn, New York amid the misconception that switching back to cigarettes would be healthier than vaping, according to CCC.

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