An Amish buggy parked outside of a "smokes" shop in Berne, Indiana
AMISH SMOKING: I've written about this topic before, but I stumbled upon a scene last week in Berne, Indiana that illustrated it well. Note this horse-drawn buggy parked outside of a "smokes" shop on US 27. This is about as close as I was able to get from an awkward vantagepoint in a parking lot across the street.
In my over two decades of visiting Amish settlements all over the USA and Canada I’ve only seen an Amish person smoking once, and that was a young Amish man in Geauga County, Ohio. Seeing a youth smoking almost doesn't count since they aren't often bound by church rules in the same way adults are. Tobacco seems to be a habit that is either very private or very localized to certain Amish communities. One friend of mine attended an Amish wedding in Pennsylvania several years ago and wrote to me afterwards about how “some of the men sat in chairs outside under the trees talking and smoking” after the wedding, behavior that she described as “typical.” Yet I have never seen anything like that. It's one thing to smoke privately, but socially like that is something I've never seen.
There are some Amish in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky that grow tobacco and in some church districts smoking is permitted.
I have also heard of Amish in - this is a surprise - ultra-conservative Swartzentruber Amish settlements smoking cigars.
By the way, one of the biggest arguments against Amish smoking isn't health impacts (although that surely has contributed to a decline in the habit), but economic. It's simply seen has generally too expensive of a habit to maintain and a frivolous waste of money for the traditionally frugal Amish. Here is an interesting, more indepth, treatment of the topic.
Dennis
Some Amish groups allow smoking, but only allow brown cigarettes. No worldly white papered fags like the English smoke.
Kevin
Interesting, Dennis, thanks for checking in! Have you seen amish smoking? If so, where?
Dennis
Ohio. The Schwartzentrubers in Peoli
Kevin
Neat, I don't know anyone in that settlement, do you have friends there?
Dennis
I have friends who have friends there. We have also had a couple groups move into the Freeport Ohio area in the past few years. Not sure which group they are with. Pretty sure not Scwartzentruber, though. I have many, many Beachy friends, though. Attend church with them.
Tom The Backroads Traveller
OK Kevin, I need to take you to Conewango or the communities that have been started by folks from Conewango. Do men smoke? YES! and they chew! They smoke pipes and those small cigars with the brown wrappers (they're really cigarettes). The economic situation is a point, but Conewango is located near an Indian reservation where untaxed tobacco is sold. Some families are big tobacco users and other don't touch it. Tom The Backroads Traveller
Kevin
Interesting, Tom. Just not something I have seen before in the Amish settlements I have visited, but good point about the proximity to the reservations!