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The first warning to get slapped onto a pack of cigarettes in the United States said "Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health" and took place in 1966. From that point forward, we were warned. Warned there was a danger. While warnings on cigarette packs became wordier as time passed and seemed to become more suggestive of actual health problems, singling out pregnant women, warning that the Surgeon General has determined smoking is bad for your health, even warning of carbon monoxide and lung issues, none of that stopped mass numbers of people from smoking.

Why? Because smoking is a choice. Regardless of when or why a person started smoking, it all comes down to personal responsibility. Be bigger than your addiction. Stop smoking and whining and crying that you only have one lung. Stop taking off your oxygen to walk outside to have another smoke. Stop the madness. For the most part, a person and his or actions are the reason they have health problems. Since 1966 when the first warning labels were placed on cigarettes we've known the danger. Sure, there are the innocents to consider; children in homes where the adults smoke; teenagers smoking because they have not learned any better. However, in all actuality, that also becomes the responsibility of the smoker because it is a direct result of his or her actions. It is not the fault of targeting advertising or being bombarded with images of how cool a person would be if only they'd light up.

In fact, advertising has been addressed and television commercials for cigarettes ended in 1971. Billboards that had once depicted smoking and cigarette brands were replaced with anti-smoking messages due to the tobacco settlement of 1999. While a good argument can be made that tobacco companies targeted the young audience, in all reality, it comes down to personal choice and a matter of becoming educated on the issue.

While alcohol advertising is regulated, we still see commercials and print ads for beer and hard liquor everywhere we turn. They are at the grocery store and at the gas station; In windows of establishments and in the menu of restaurants. If anything, one could argue that those advertisements pressure people into drinking just as people argue that tobacco ads pressured them into smoking. Tell me alcohol is not advertised in such a way that a teenager doesn't think he will get the beautiful girl if only he consumes the right drink? Or that football just wouldn't be the same without a nice cold beer served by the really hot chick wearing close to nothing. The only real difference seems to be that smoking is no longer socially acceptable and drinking is.

Take responsibility for your actions. We don't sue alcohol producers when someone gets mangled by a drunk driver or when they are dying because their liver is shot. Those are choices that person made. The same should hold true for tobacco, especially in this day and age of readily accessible information.

Man up and take responsibility for your own actions and stop blaming someone else.

Learn more about this author, Stella Dean.
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