Of all the habits humans indulge in, Smoking is the most baffling.
The effects on the health of the smoker, as well as other people through passive smoking, the ever rising cost of feeding the habit and the tax burden put on by most civilised governments are all well understood by those that indulge in the past time.
Yet many people, once they start to smoke continue to do so throughout their lifetime.
It is almost universally accepted that that lifetime will be foreshortened and that the smokers general well being will deteriorate at a greater rate than the non-smoker.
Looked at objectively, the habit is quite an unpleasant one.
Yellow stained teeth and fingers, together with bad breath and smelly clothes that can be detected across a room by a non-smoker, are all pointers to someone who 'takes the weed'.
Yet people must get satisfaction, pleasure or some other form of good feeling from smoking a cigarette or cigar, otherwise they certainly would not brush aside these negative attributes of the habit.
Its clear most smokers enjoy the after-effect, even from a single drag on someone else's lit cigarette.
Even those that do give up the habit usually admit to missing something that was an enjoyable part of their lives, even if it did have harmful elements.
Once started on smoking, most people find it really difficult to stop, largely due to the addictive power of a cigarette's nicotine content.
Why then do Smokers take up the habit in the first place? It is clearly not because the dangers of smoking are not generally known.
Indeed governments and other organizations all around the world spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year highlighting the harmful effects of smoking.
The move to take up the first cigarette can come from a number of influences.
A surprising number of smokers tried their first smoke when still under the age of twelve.
Often as a 'dare' or some similar pressure from peers at school.
The majority of those that go on to be lifetime heavy smokers however commence the process, which at this time may not yet be a habit, when in their teens.
Adolescence brings with it a need to be one of the 'in-crowd' and to fit in.
This is also true in later life but maturity tends to bring understanding and a more considered approach to such things as smoking.
It is particularly difficult for teenagers to resist the pressure from friends to appear cool and to establish some form of 'street-cred' by having a cigarette dangling from their mouth.
Some youths will of course listen to the anti smoking propaganda coming at them from the older generation and simply rebel against parental and other advice.
Besides, doing what grownups do, makes them grownup doesn't it? Like most things to do with teenagers, they already know the dangers of potential harm to health etc.
They just choose to interpret the risk differently from their elders.
Tobacco company advertising is probably the most significant influence on the decision to take up smoking.
Usually depicting fit and healthy young people having fun and then relaxing with a smooth cigarette is a great motivator to take up smoking at any age.
Who wouldn't be tempted to rush out to buy the depicted cigarette so they could immediately sign up for the great lifestyle that would otherwise be so elusive? The popular images depicted in cigarette advertisements also appeal to adults.
They either feel they missed something in their youth or just feel they are now ready to take up the good life they deserve and smoking will give them the edge.
Fully aware that smoking will not be an automatic ticket to social acceptance, they nevertheless feel it will change their perceived image to one of being a sophisticated, cool person on top of their game.
As people get older, they tend to become more stressed and this often leads to them turning to cigarette smoking as a way of relieving that stress.
Although tobacco is not a long-term cure for stress and emotional instability, it does offer a means of short-term solace, not available to non-smokers.
Stressful or high emotion jobs tend to have higher percentages of workers who smoke than more mundane types of work.
At some point in life, most smokers decide they should quit the smoking habit.
The known dangers, previously put to the back of their minds come to the fore, possibly because they are beginning to suffer from increasing health problems.
At this point, they have an extremely difficult task ahead of them, for the addictive nature of the nicotine in the tobacco is going to fight them all the way.