Do Young People Still See Smoking As Cool?

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Back in my youth, many of my TV and movie heroes smoked. Jack Regan and George Carter would puff their way through a whole packet of Embassy Regal in each episode of The Sweeney, and guests on the Parkinson Show would pass the ashtray around as they chatted. Smoking was cool - and I was quick to take it up. Photos of Hollywood stars of that era would often feature a cigarette to indicate 'sophistication' (yet this was always a freshly-lit lengthy job, not a cig-end between the lips, the rising smoke from which stung the eyes). In these enlightened times, however, we know the truth about smoking; that is it a debilitating, expensive and potentially fatal pastime. I ditched the wicked weed almost twenty years ago - and I'll never start again. But does smoking have any semblance of sophistication attached to it these days, or are our kids clued in enough to know better?