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Smoke gets in your eyes in nicotine-stained Central Valley

Smoking is so déclassé, or so we've been told.

The smoking rate among California adults hovers at 12.5 percent, far below the national average of 19 percent. But this is a big state with many regions.

Smokers evidently are not the social outcasts in, say, Bakersfield, Redding or Sacramento County that they are in San Mateo and Atherton.