I quit smoking seven years ago, and now I try to limit my occasional habit to special, social occasions. Lately, though, I've been working 24/7 and find myself craving my old addiction pretty much daily.
I am trying to abstain by keeping busy, busy, busy (although that's the cause as well as the cure), and can't decide if I feel better or worse knowing that, "Cigarettes are still sublime."
Nonetheless, I do love the idea, explored in Scott's thoughtful post, that our collective attitudes toward smoking as a society could be the focus of serious cultural criticism; it's such an interesting, provocative subject to examine from an intellectual perspective. Personally, I do think painting cigarette smoking as illicit heightens its allure as a rebellious behavior on the most primal level.
Having once been a smoker for almost a decade, I can honestly say that it is absolutely not a sexy habit at all in practice, although our culture generally seems to regard it as sexy in theory (esp. the accoutrements - I spent many glamorous smoke breaks, waxing philosopically in the equally precocious company of my fellow sophomore Sabrina Bergman, who was fond of elbow-length gloves and an antique cigarette holder).
My opinion: smoking, not unlike the labor movement and most of the 20th century, is sexy, but only in a nostalgic sense. Some, it seems [note: check out the fab illustration by Ariel Bordeaux], would quite disagree. What do you think?
I often reflect on this absolute gem of a quote from Fleur Cowles as a daily meditation: 
