Or because they enjoy nicotine/tobacco. Not everyone is drowning in self-hatred because they like a little head-buzz. Witness the outrageous growth of tobacco-based vaping products in the last few years.

Look at dosage. You can smoke an integer number of cigs a day. I am not aware of anyone smoking 1/3rd of a cig at a time or at least its very unpopular.

I can and do limit my sugar intake but for a treat once in awhile I'll buy one of those extremely expensive yet extremely tasty imported dark chocolate bars and eat one little square as treat per day for a long while. I bet if I ate the whole bar in one sitting I could reignite my sugar cravings, but its just a gram or so of carbs so I'm good.

The counterexamples are I suppose e-cig vape people could just sniff the bottle, or people who drink one unit of soda no matter if its a 6 oz mini can or 64 oz giant cup.

Given the tobacco companies have historically been guilty of pretty much every evil known to mankind I would not be surprised to discover the "unit size cigarette" is at least partially constrained geometrically to maximize addiction, and a smaller or larger dose would result in lower addiction rates.

There might be a maximal addiction dosage of dark chocolate, but non-unit consumption of candy bars is so normal that it might not work as an addiction strategy.

I think more people are actually addicted to sugar, but socially we don't recognize that in the same way we recognize alcohol or drug additions.

There's an interesting question that arises from this though: are more people now addicted to sugar because everyone is now aware of the terrible results of long term smoking (but aren't as aware of the problems with sugar)? Should we have warning labels on packs of sugar too?

I've heard people talk about how 40 years ago, or less than that, if you asked someone to put out their cigarette in the office, everyone would think you were some kind of jerk.

Now no one smokes, but we have an obesity/diabetes epidemic, and people bring in homemade cookies or brownies every day.

I can just imagine the uproar if anyone proposed a sugar free office though.

Thankfully brownies don't make everyone stink.

I think some people's cologne/perfume stinks, but I don't see anyone trying to ban that. Some people have asthma complications due to second hand fragrance.

Should we mandate showers too? I've known some people who didn't practice proper hygiene and had a rather repulsive smell. Maybe we should forcibly scrub them down.

> Most people consuming cigarettes are doing do because they are addicted

Is that true? How many "social smokers" are there? I ask, because I do not know.

I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that most "social smokers" are physically addicted.

That's probably not true (nb: I'm a "social smoker" in the sense of, if I'm out drinking, I'll follow friends out for a smoke break; that makes me a "pack a year" smoker) --- the demographics on smoking have changed to the point where it's become useful to study "light" smoking and not just daily addicted smoking. In studies, young smokers smoke much less than older people. Addicted smokers smoke all the time. From this, I conclude that there are, like me, people who smoke non-addictively.

And, as the Surgeon General made clear:

http://www.theonion.com/video/surgeon-general-smoking-fine-a...

My experience is very similar. I probably consume about 1 pack a year or so with friends in social environments. The other things is I do a fair amount of traveling and don't want to be rude or reject someone's hospitality if someone offers me a cigarette while I'm abroad.

As I said above, I'm jealous of people that can manage this :)

I was hopelessly addicted to cigs from ages 18 to 21. I'm talking two packs a day, lighting up before getting out of bed, smoking while eating, etc.

I quit nearly cold turkey (one month ramp down) and didn't touch one for about a decade. A few years ago I went through a "social smoking" phase for a few months where I'd bum a couple while out drinking, or during the day here and there. Maybe totaled like ten cigs a week or so.

There is a huuuuge difference. Social smoking is real.

There must be a rate below which physiological dependence is impossible. I doubt you can be dependent on, say, 2 cigarettes a week.

Many people smoke and don't have any sincere desire to quit.