... These are just a couple of my cravings.

"... when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself."

Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary, 1975

It's tedious and frankly looks a bit ridiculous, the smoke makes our clothes and our breath stink, we wheeze and cough, but yet we continue to indulge in this habit that will inevitably kill us.

"My name's Sarah, and I'm a social smoker,"

Now it's out in the open I can begin to discuss my varied and somewhat hypocritical view on smoking. Whether it was a case of rebellion that I smoked my first cigarette aged 14, I don't know. My boyfriend at the time smoked, and in my naive teenage head, this meant he was really cool. He had to light it for me, I didn't know how. I took one drag of the "Richmond Superking", my lungs didn't know what was happening and I coughed and spluttered for the next five minutes.

Smoking seems to be one of those things that at the time, we begin to do naively thinking that it won't take hold of us and become an addiction. Unfortunately, it happens and we're stuck in a vicious circle of smoking, trying to give up, failing, smoking, trying to give up and failing... again. I've seen friends who used to smoke occasionally when they'd had one too many to drink, turn into 20 a day smokers. I read somewhere a while ago, that smoking is more addictive than class A drugs, and I can believe that to an extent. Cigarettes are everywhere; they take pride of place in our local newsagents, parents smoke infront of their young children who then think that it's ok to smoke.

The smoking ban in 2007 has made conditions better in pubs and clubs, but there is still the issue of the numerous groups of people huddled over their cigarettes outside. Smoking seems to be one of those things that is never going to go away completely, no matter how much the Government try to promote ill health, and create new laws to decrease the exposure to non-smokers.