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To understand why smoking is such a widespread problem you have to look at the history of it. Back in the early 1900's it was fashionable to smoke. Through the 30's and 40's many believe that the cigarette companies paid Hollywood movie companies big bucks to subtley promote the habit/addiction, which is believable since you can't find many movies from that era where someone isn't lighting one up.
Of course during WWII smokes were a staple....What else were soldiers supposed to do while sitting around waiting for orders? It simply wasn't looked on as something that could conceivably be bad for you back then.
The same can be said for the 50's, where the subtle promotion spread to TV. So, with such a groundswell of people picking up the "habit" (addiction) throughout all those decades, their kids naturally followed suit. I look at the friends I had growing up and almost to a person the ones whose parents smoked all started smoking too.
Others started because the kids in school who smoked were perceived as the 'bad/cool' crowd, the rebels who had to go off of school property to smoke.
In many aspects smoking is very much a "sheep" kind of thing. :D
Seriously, the cig companies make your money, while you reap the rewards of using their product.... and I have seen first-hand it's results: Old people sitting in long-term wings of hospitals suffering from all manner of respiratory ailments, blah blah blah... no one wants to hear it, right? Point is, the cig companies don't care one small turdlette about you except to quietly be thankful for your business.
Personally I long ago chose to never be sucked in to it. There are other ways of looking cool, other ways of dealing with stress (try sex, exercise, walking, find a hobby, collect stamps, build birdhouses...), not to mention my hair/clothes/breath don't stink like ashtray.
This legacy of smoking the 1900's has given us isn't where the entire blame lies, but it is very much one of the reasons the addiction is what it is today.
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