How independent are you when you can't get through a day (or an hour) without sucking on a cancer stick? Smoking, as portrayed by the tobacco industry, looks like a lifestyle choice. Dead wrong. It's an addiction, the very opposite of independence. If you want control of your life and health, rebel against tobacco.

• A Canadian study found that to recruit new smokers, brand images communicated independence, freedom, and peer acceptance.
• An RJ Reynolds document attributed the success of Phillip Morris' Marlboro to brand communications that were "�in tune with younger adult smokers' enduring want to express their maturity and independence through smoking."
• As much as a third of all youth who experiment with smoking do so because of effective tobacco industry marketing.

But wait, there's MORE

On August 17, 2006, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kesseler issued a federal opinion in the federal government's lawsuit against major tobacco companies. It was found that the tobacco companies (the defendants):

• violated civil racketeering laws.
• defrauded the American public by lying over decades about the health risks of tobacco.
• did market to children.
• continue to deceive the public by "recruiting new smokers (the majority of whom are under the age of 18), preventing current smokers from quitting, and thereby sustaining the industry."