Made from tobacco leaves and other additives which are rolled and stuffed into a paper wrapped cylinder cigarettes are everywhere. As an addiction, cigarettes rates near the top of the heap. They are also well known to be a cause of lung cancer and birth defects in small children. And yet people still continue to smoke them walk and down the street in any town or any city in the United States on any given day it's amazing to see the multitude of people smoking cigarettes. And they vary in social stature, race, class, and sex; cigarettes know no bounds.

Cigarettes are very popular in America for both their sexy allure and the defiance of conformity. Cigarettes can typically get into the hands of a young person by the age of 12 or 13 years old. This is where the addiction comes and as the nicotine found in cigarettes is highly addictive. Kids who are young and don't know any better or grew up in a household where smoking is part of the plan can easily influenced and addicted to the cigarette. And by trying to buck authority and be a rebel, they are actually falling right into the trap of being just like everyone else.

If you're looking for cheap cigarettes, good luck. While the federal government, on the surface, talks about how smoking is bad and how much against smoking in children they are, the special interest groups in Washington, DC really have their hands on the pens of the lawmakers.

So it's up to parents to set a good example. If they are going to smoke, they should never do it around young children. Younger children are very strongly influenced by their parents and if the parents cared anything about their young children they would strongly dissuade them from following in their footsteps. An even better example to set would be to show your child how bad it is to smoke and then to quit yourself! Besides, cigarettes are so expensive in the first place, how can you afford to that habit anyway?

Since 1970 the United States has been doing their part in trying to curb the habit of cigarette smoking by banning advertisements on television. And it's a rarity that she'll even ever see a cigarette dispenser in many parts of the country anymore. Even all of the bars and restaurants in a major metropolitan area like New York City have banned smoking for years now. But they still congregate out on the sidewalk; huddled in little circles puffing away on their cigarettes and blowing the smoke into the air.