I really don't understand how so many young people continue to take up smoking.  Do they think the medical studies are all fake?  Do they believe that somehow they are immune?
    Back in the sixties, when I was a teen, most adults smoked.  Since it was for adults only, teens considered it cool to smoke.  It would make them more adult.  And the vague idea that it might be unhealthy wasn't enough to scare anyone.
    Now there have been numerous studies linking smoking to numerous illnesses and causing about 400,000 deaths a year.  Yet young people still start smoking.
    I decided to do some research into the subject on the web on why young people are still starting to smoke.  What I found is that not much has changed with the thinking of teens and young adults in the past fifty years.
According to one web site, the three main reasons young people start smoking is:

• to look more mature
• to be like their friends
• to experiment with something new

Sadly, once they realize it was a mistake, they are addicted, though they usually deny they are.

A U.K. site blames it largely on clever marketing by tobacco companies. 

Another U.S. site lists different reasons:

• It's fun
• You reward yourself with a cigarette
• It's an oral pleasure replacing food or sex when you can't get food or sex (or don't want to)
• It kills time

What I don't see on these sites, is why the overwhelming evidence of health risk is largely ignored.  But then, we are in the age of extreme sports where it isn't fun if it isn't very risky.  Maybe that explains it.  Like those Japanese folks who continue to eat a type of fish that will kill you if it wasn't prepared properly.

As for those who take up smoking at an older age, the most common reason given is that it helps them relax or reduce stress.  That, of course, is only temporary.  When you become seriously addicted you just added a major item to your list of things to get stressed about.