Jr. The tobacco industry likes to portray itself as just another American business, but the facts point to precisely the opposite conclusion. Evidence uncovered in the recent tobacco litigation demonstrates that the tobacco companies deliberately deceived the public into believing that their products were safe and non-addictive while conspiring to keep the industry's knowledge to the contrary secret, manipulated the nicotine delivery of their products to better addict consumers, and targeted children in their advertising campaigns.
Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States.
The tobacco industry tries to portray smoking as a matter of adult choice. In 1988, however, the U.S. Surgeon General confirmed that nicotine causes a physical addiction similar to and as powerful as those caused by cocaine or heroin. Although smoking involves an initial decision to start, it quickly becomes not a matter of free choice but one of addiction. And most nicotine addiction begins not during adulthood, but during adolescence. Eighty-two percent of adult smokers began smoking as teenagers.