Smoking and Ethics

Smoking is the single greatest preventable cause of death in the world. It is a universal ethical concept that prevention is better than cure. When it comes to smoking, most countries are faced by an ethical paradox: while many decades of research have provided incontrovertible evidence of the health hazards of cigarette smoking, the tobacco industry still flourishes, often with either tacit or overt government support. The ethics of smoking are made even more serious by alarming revelations about the deaths and health risks caused by second-hand smoke.