When the Truth Initiative's 2019 "While You Were Streaming" report called out Netflix for featuring excessive tobacco use in a series popular with young people, the press--including USA Today and Variety--picked up the story, putting pressure on the series' producers. It appears that drawing attention to the problem worked, at least to a certain extent. Stranger Things did not eliminate all tobacco use depictions, but their number in Season 4 significantly decreased compared to previous seasons. Winona Ryder's character, for example, stopped smoking altogether. In Season 5, the depictions further diminished; even Jim Hopper, the chain-smoking police chief, apparently quit. In addition, Season 4 contains at least one, and Season 5 two scenes, in which the adolescent protagonists express their disapproval of smoking.
Season 4, Episode 1
Character development. Billy's sister, Max, moves in with her alcoholic mother. When the latter falls asleep without putting out her Kool--the best-selling mentholated cigarette of the era--Max puts it out for her, ensuring that their trailer won't burn down.
Season 4, Episode 4
Verisimilitude. Hopper, Joyce, and Murray spend most of Season 4 in the Soviet Union. Hopper is taken prisoner at the end of Season 3, and locked up in a penal colony in Kamchatka. After learning about his fate, Joyce and Murray travel to Alaska and pay a Russian smuggler to break Hopper out of prison. With a help of a bribed guard, Hopper manages to escape and hides in an old church the smuggler uses to store American products, including cartons of Pall Mall Filters and Camel Filters cigarettes.
Season 4, Episode 6
Action prop. Hopper is promptly recaptured and brought back to the prison. There, along with several other inmates, he is being "fatten up" to be fed to the Upside Down monsters the Soviets had captured in Hawkins. During the dinner, a guard conspicuously lights his cigarette with a Zippo lighter. On their way back to their cells, Hopper provokes a yard brawl, and steals the lighter from the guard in the ensuing chaos. Later, he explains to his fellow inmates that fire is their only chance against the monsters. In the next episode, Hopper will go into the fight with a flaming spear.
Character development. Back in Indiana, the fugitive high school student, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn)--falsely accused of killing his female classmate--smokes Camel Filters. When Eddie wants to light up in the company of the adolescent protagonists, one of them snatches the cigarette from his mouth, exclaiming "Gross."
Season 4, Episode 9
Verisimilitude. After Murray and Joyce help Hopper escape from the prison a second time, they all return to the old church full with contraband. While Hopper tends to his wounds, the stacks of cigarette cartons on the shelves get ample screen time. In fact, the long-awaited first kiss between Joyce and Hopper occurs with the cigarettes in the foreground.
Character reinforcement. While planning their next move in the church, Hopper opens a pack of Camel Filters and breaks off the filter, though the audience never sees him light it. Notably, he also holds the less recognizable side of the pack toward the camera.
Season 5, Episode 2
Character development. When Will catches her mother smoking after her Season 4 abstinence, it is revealed in the dialogue that she has been trying to quit.
Season 5 Episode 3
Character development. The stressed-out, dismissive doctor (Lee Spencer) at the town's hospital smokes Marlboro. After he attempts to prevent Nancy Wheeler from visiting her mother, who was badly mauled by a monster, Nancy explains to her brother that one cannot trust doctors who smoke.