You miss the point; 3/4 of all the deaths in a given year are the deaths of non-smokers, when did anybody make a fuss over that?
Since the percentage of mortality among smokers pretty much equals the percentage of smokers in the population who die, one might just as easily classify the number of people who eat garlic, or snowboard or wear red garters.
Now, if the percentage of smokers who die could be shown to be higher than those non-smokers who die, an argument would have merit. But no figures exist by which one could make that determination.
The argument for premature death assumes that each of us is alloted a certain number of years and, if we don't make it, something intervened to put us down.
The prologue to Albert Camus' The Plague has a tale of a man so morbidly fearful that he takes to his bed and hires a manservant to attend to his needs and for entertainment the frightened soul counts peas from a full bowl to an empty one then switches bowls and continues until sleep overtakes him.
That was meant, I think, to say that a life unlived, is no life at all.
Yes, the notion that a birth certificate carries an expiration date and the only goal in life is meeting or exceeding that date is confounding to me.
It's as if life were some sort of term paper to be completed according to schedule - and then what?
The goal of dying in perfect health has been met?