Cigarettes are really nice when you feel stressed out. We all have to die sometime, and somehow. They should have said, 'Okay, fine, our product is dangerous. Instead, they were stupid and attempted to deny the obvious. However, this does not mean that people did not know the hazards of smoking.
Surveys show that people consistently rank smoking among the riskiest activities around.
Teenagers may be clueless, but they sure as heck are aware that smoking is really bad for you. Ultimately, such an argument may marginally help tobacco, but it hurts the rest of American industry. If we deny this, it makes what we say about other, unfounded health scares far less credible. I often wonder how companies in other industries feel when they are compared to tobacco. I think that many are beginning to realize it is an albatross around all of American business, just as the European cookie-makers fought back against the Philip Morris ads.