That’s partly because politicians rammed through anti-smoking legislation in many locales (not even allowing separately ventilated smoking rooms). Many places spent a good deal of money on ventilation equipment so that even with a few smokers, the air you were breathing in there was likely that little bit safer than what you would breathe outside on a city street.
The decline of pubs in the United States and Canada and the United Kingdom due in part to politicians and their sledgehammer to a fly approach to bars and pubs and smoking has also likely been a cause of a noted increase in binge drinking and other dangerous related practices.
I am not a smoker, but there is truth in what you say.
Back in the Day, some of the best Music was played in “smoke-filled rooms”. Blues, Jazz, Rock, Country....all of it.