As a smoker, myself, I am constantly badgered about quitting. All the more reason to continue firing up the sweet little teets, but I don't encourage others and I certainly don't want to see kids doing it.
Over sixteen? You can drive... might as well be able to smoke. Because the chances of you dying in a car crash are much higher than dying as a result of smoking related illnesses.
Lung cancer and throat cancer, I don't want to get into, but I will say that it is mostly genetics, history of illness in the family. Not one of my family has EVER, EVER taken ill with cancer from smoking. And at one time all of them smoked and now a third of us still smoke. My grandmother is five and ninety years of age and still smokes one after a meal.
On that note, the age of prohibition needs to be lowered down to eighteen nationwide. You are able to enlist in the Armed Forces, go to war, and put your life on the line for this country at eighteen. However, you can't get a beer at a TGIFridays?