Have you ever seen someone die of COPD from smoking for years and years? I have...quite a few.
Granted, some people smoke and never get COPD and some people (asthmatics) get COPD and never smoke. But in my 20 year nursing career, I've taken care of one asthmatic with COPD and too many smokers with it to count.
There sure are a lot of ways to die, but since I'm not an asthmatic, COPD isn't likely to be one of them for me. Coughing up chunks of thick grey phlegm for years into a trashcan until I'm too weak to cough it up and a nurse has to run a tube down my nose into my lungs to suck it out into a cannister on the wall and then sitting bolt upright in bed gasping for that last breath that doesn't come isn't how I'm gonna die.
I certainly will die of something, but not that.
Not a pretty picture. I think these comments illustrate that there is another factor involved as to whether a smoker gets lung disease or cancer. But I would say that the chances of getting either greatly increase with smoking.