Cigarettes really aren’t bad for you on a short term basis. So it makes some sense that, while even a modicum of good decision making (courtesy of the mentioned prefrontal cortex) could help you kick smack, deciding to quit smoking due to some nebulous fear of illness decades in the future might prove more challenging.
bell-cot|3 years ago
Old guy's perspective: Most of the family / friends / neighbors who I knew to be regular cigarette smokers 3-4 decades ago are now either dead, or suffer profoundly reduced qualities of life - generally due to lung cancers & other stereotypical "smoker's diseases". Not a random sample, and the value of n is too small to call it solid statistics, but...
cafard|3 years ago
They are difficult to quit. My father took a good dozen years to quit, with repeated failed attempts. During one of the big takeover battles of the 1980s, somebody explained the desirability of owning a cigarette manufacturer: you make them for a dime, you sell them for a dollar, and people get addicted to them.