"Each year throughout the world, the tobacco industry kills some 3 million of its best customers- equivalent to 20 loaded jumbo jets daily"(Peto et al. 47). And the worst is yet to come. Given present trends, estimated a 1994 World Health Organization report, half a billion people alive today will be killed by tobacco. A teen-to-the-grave smoker has a fifty percent chance of being killed by the habit and often dies an agonizing, premature death. So, with these odds wouldn't you think getting hooked can only be viewed as deeply dumb, or at least tragically naive, thing to do (even if you don't mind bad breath, yellowed teeth, and earlier wrinkles and graying)? "Smoke a cigarette and nature will charge you 12 minutes off your life expectancy"(Peto 98). Thus, the elimination of smoking would do more to increase life expectancy than would any other preventative measure. Smoking's destructiveness has prompted many scientists, psychologists, and researchers to study why people start!
             smoking, why they keep smoking, and how we might prevent smoking or help people to quit. In spite of all these reasons, with nicotine being so addictive and lethal, why would it be so wrong to make this destroyer of so many lives illegal?
             Smoking is a "pediatric disease." It usually begins during early adolescence and is especially common among those who get low grades, who feel less competent and in control of their future, and whose friends, parents, and siblings smoke. Fortunately, if the cigarette manufacturers haven't attracted you by the age of nineteen or twenty, the odds are overwhelming that they never will.
             Three in four smokers have tried to stop. However, once addicted to nicotine it is hard to quit, because tobacco products are as addictive as heroin and cocaine. As with other addictions, the smoker bec
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