Grocery stores had candy cigarettes in the checkout line impulse buy areas, right next to the candy bars, so kids could pester their parents for a pack. Big Tobacco hyper-normalized the fuck out of it all.

Edit: they tasted like mint-flavored chalk. Somewhere between Tums and Smarties. (Because of course my chain-smoking grandparents thought it was adorable to give fake cigs to a six year old.)