Man has been smoking tobacco since ages. In the last century it grew very fast. Earlier it was in the form of hookah. When cigarettes came into the market, smoking grew very fast. There were many reasons of it.

• As it is a habit which turns into an addiction.
• Cigarettes are more convenient to smoke compared to hookahs and other forms
• Illusion of smoking is assign of grown up people.
• Misconception of smoking being relaxing.

Habit turning into an addiction assured the cigarettes companies of regular sales. In fact, whatever expenditure they incurred on marketing and advertising gave good returns. Their aggressive marketing aimed to perpetuate misconceptions and illusions. As the governments were getting taxes and exports were rising, they did not feel any compulsions of acting against the industry.

The harm caused by smoking and its side-effects took time to come to fore. When they became known, the industry denied it and opposed quit smoking medications. Later when studies were undertaken and their result showed the harms caused by smoking, the industry contested the results. Concerted drive to create confusion was launched and continued for many years.

The fact that smoking is responsible for rise in the number of cases of lung cancer was ultimately recognized and industry could not deny it. Finally some court cases asking industry to pay compensation paved the way of printed warning on cigarettes packs.

All this took many decades. No wonder tobacco industry is on the wane. Stop smoking. If anybody is still not disillusioned he has only himself to blame.