Quoting Andrew McGlashan (andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au):
Cigarettes are legal for those of the /right/ age, but I don't understand why anyone would seriously take up smoking today with what is known health wise and the cost of the habit financially.
That's always been a puzzler for me, too. A number of my co-workers smoke tobacco, and it's always been at least slightly tempting to abduct a few of them, strap them into chairs Clockwork Orange-style, and coerce them into revealing what in tarnation possessed them to start doing such a fool thing. Strictly in the name of science, of course. Used to be, I would absolve tobacco smokers of the assumption of idiocy if they were old enough that they might have started before the Surgeon General's Report[1] in 1964, but few now qualify for that exemption. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_and_Health:_Report_of_the_Advisory_Comm...