| If smoking was really that hazardous and a killer | | | | effects are well known and well documented. It is |
| habit, very few would smoke today. Nicotine | | | | injurious to health in the long run. Still people |
| — the active substance in cigarettes | | | | continue to pick up the habit, and continue |
| — is akin to similar chemicals found in tea | | | | smoking. |
| and coffee, and other habit related drugs. Having | | | | It seems the attraction to smoking lies in the |
| a cigarette means very much the same to a | | | | very act of smoking. Holding a cigarette in one's |
| smoker as having a cup of tea means to us. Yet | | | | hand, and defying others and the norms. It is the |
| one habit is vilified, and the other is even | | | | first step into adulthood — of being oneself, |
| encouraged as being healthy. | | | | rather than being defined by others. It is a show |
| What attracts young people to smoking? The bad | | | | of the emerging self. |