Likewise, the difficulty of giving up the tobacco habit has been common knowledge for centuries. Tobacco is tobacco. Although all tobacco products pose some health risks, cigarettes are by far the most hazardous. Cigars and pipes are considerably less dangerous. By one estimate, smokeless tobacco is 98 percent safer than cigarettes.
People smoke because of advertising.
There is remarkably little evidence that advertising plays an important role in getting people to smoke, as opposed to getting them to smoke a particular brand. Given the complexity of the issue, none is likely to be forthcoming in the forseeable future. None of the widely publicized studies that have appeared in recent years, including the much-hyped research on Joe Camel, actually measured the impact of advertising on a teenager's propensity to smoke. Smoking imposes costs on society. Secondhand smoke poses a grave threat to bystanders.