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(Starting from the bottom)

Liberal use of prohibition is a bad idea that doesn't succeed in its intended purpose and that does in fact cause a great degree of additional problems for society.

I agree completely. It is my personal opinion, and my opinion only, that the main reason Ted Kennedy is so in favor of FDA regulation of tobacco products is he wishes to follow in his father's footsteps in order to take advantage of bootlegging a prohibbited product to refurbish the dwindling Kennedy Koffers. The ill-gotten gains of Old Joe from the days of alcohol prohibition have been hard hit in recent years defending various offspring (including Teddy boy himself)from numerous brushes with the law.

It's down by close to half if I'm not mistaken since the early 1970's, especially among young people.

You are only partially correct here. For adult smokers you are just about on the money, the numbers have levelled off and have remained level for several years at around 24-25% of the adult population, down from close to 50%. I disagree with you when it comes to young people, after a period of steady decline, the numbers have started a slight, but seemingly steady, increase. I lay the blame for this phenomena squarely at the feet of the anti-smokers and their blatant propaganda aimed at young people. And I also blame the increase of youth use of other substances in the same spot. "cigarettes are more addictive than cocaine or heroin" is such a blatant and bogus claim that anyone stating it, IMO, should be held liable for false advertising or something along those lines. Everyone knows that the more you tell a kid NOT to do something, the more they may very well decide to try it. Keeping the kids who won't bother trying cigarettes or anything else out of the equation, you're going to get 2 sets of kids here - those that see it for the BS it is and try the cigarettes, knowing that cocaine or heroin is far more dangerous and those that fall for decide if cigarettes are worse they might as well try the heroin or cocaine. In the 15+ years that I have been dealing with the issue of keeping adult cigarette smoking legal I have never heard of a first time smoker dying because of that 1 cigarette. Yet I have heard and read of many cases of that happening to a first time cocaine or heroin user.

And I save the best for last....

Nicotine is an extremely addictive drug and cigarettes are killing millions of Americans.

Nicotine was no more an addictive drug than the caffeine in your coffee or cola or chocolate bar until the Surgeon General changed the definition of addiction to include that which was previously considered an habituation. As to killing "millions" of Americans, even the CDC (that bastion of truth) only claims about 450,000 (give or take 10,000 or so, depending upon who is making the statement) "premature" deaths per year from smoking-related causes.

Do you have any idea of how they come up with that number? probably not, considering they really don't even know - it's a computer generated number. And smoking-related does not equate to smoking-caused. A smoker, driving home from work is broadsided by a drunk driver and killed in the collision - that smoker winds up on 3 different "death by" lists, including smoking-related.

I don't buy into over taxation, over regulation, or over paternalistic government. I am an adult, I make my own choices in life. And life, in and of itself is a MAJOR risk.

Nicotine was no more an addictive drug than the caffeine in your coffee or cola or chocolate bar until the Surgeon General changed the definition of addiction to include that which was previously considered an habituation.

Drug Category	Proportion of Users That Ever Became Dependent (%)
Tobacco	32
Alcohol	15
Marijuana (including hashish)	9
Cocaine	17
Heroin	23

- Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base (1999), Institute of Medicine

Well, my mother is now in advanced stages of emphysema and she still can't quit smoking the damnd things. My grandmother, also a heavy smoker, died a miserable death from emphysema. My mother-in-law, who still can't bring herself to quit, was diagnosed nearly a year ago with emphysema. I quit my twenty plus year habit the day she was diagnosed, and it was probably the hardest thing I ever did. I still crave the damned things.

I can tell you from personal experience that nicotine is way more addictive than caffiene, alcohol, or chocolate. I've never done heroin or been addicted to cocaine, but I am in a line of work where I frequently deal with drug addicts. My guess is that nicotine addictions are at least very close to being as strong as hard drug addictions. The process of swearing of cigarettes, then backsliding again and again is so like what I see with the meth addicts I deal with on a daily basis. It's hard as hell to quit smoking.

I am not at all surprised to hear that the cigarette/mortality connection is exaggerated. That seems to be the modus operandi of our government when it comes to anti-drug propaganda.