Hey, how about some good news.

[Lissa]

And yes, my goal is to scare the shit out of you about smoking

Studies have shown* that scare tactics to change behavior don't work, for a number of reasons. I recall my high school "drivers ed" classes showing movies designed to scare the kids into driving safer by showing the HORRIBLE FLAMING DEATH that can occur with reckless driving. Doesn't work; every student figures "sure, but that won't happen to me." And most of the time, they're right!

For smokers, it's more that the nebulous cancer/health issues they can face are too far into the future, which is always some unknown point in time when it'll all catch up to them. Plus, there are those exceptions consisting of that one 95-year-old grandma who chain smokes and never has a problem. I've even heard "oh, by the time I'd get lung cancer, they'll have a cure for it."

Of course, the cancer and health issues come on very suddenly and unexpectedly, and by then it's too late.

Finally, of course, it's easy to ask "why don't you quit" to a smoker. Trying to beat an addiction is always brutal. Apologies if you're a former smoker and you went through it, but those such as myself who have never smoked don't really understand what it's like to be addicted to smoking. I hear it never leaves you. Ever. You could be smoke-free for 25 years and still crave it.

*citation needed, I know, but too lazy

While I never smoked, my Father started at the age of 17 and continued until the age of 49 when, after the death of his older brother to cancer, made a pact with his youngest brother, and the oldest son of his deceased brother to stop smoking. He got up one morning, pulled out one last cigarette, smoked it, and then never touched another. He's been clean now for 24 years, he admits that for the first couple of years it was tough, but now, he'll never go back.