If the poskim really have assur’d it then why in E”Y is there more of a mentality to smoke? There are chashuve rabbonim in E”Y who smoke. In America, people lean more to the side of assur.
In my opinion, the poskim of America (R’ Yaakov, R’Moshe, R’ Shmuel Kamenetsky etc.) were against smoking. Torah Umesorah put out a whole video against smoking. They said it should not be done. In E”Y, although the poskim have assur’d it, no one has published out psakos against smoking.
I think the answer might be that nobody would listen if the psakos were published, but how does that figure out with all the other psakos in E”Y that are published?
What I find ironic is that R’ Eliashiv shlita the posek in Eretz Yisroel, assur’d smoking on Yom Tov, R’ Moshe Feinstein zatzal the posek in Americasaid that it should be assur to smoke on Yom Tov, but everybody does it so it must be a davar shavah lechol nefesh and it would be muttar, and yet there are ten times more the people in E”Y smoking on Yom Tov than in America.