Why Isn't Cigarette Addiction Treated the Same as Drug and Alcohol Addiction?

I always wondered why some of us smoke or smoked and yet others have never even thought about lighting up a cigarette.  Is it in our genes?  I believe it is, yet I know people who have been smoking for years but have parents that never smoked.  I know in my generation it was cool to smoke. You saw it on TV, on billboards, and in the movies.  Most adults I knew smoked.  There was a sort of glamour that came with cigarette smoking.  Then you were told that smoking kept you from gaining weight.  Maybe when I was younger that was true, but as I got older those cigarettes did not keep my weight off.

Later in life when the glamour was gone and the ads were no longer allowed on TV and the US General began campaigning against cigarette smoking, where did that leave us?  A drug addict is offered detox and rehab.  An alcoholic is offered the same.  What were the smokers offered?  Medical Insurance companies pay for addicts and alcoholics to receive treatment.  Life Insurance companies don't penalize drug addicts and alcoholics by raising their premiums.  I don't even know if there is even a question on their forms asking about drugs and alcohol, but I could be wrong.

I believe Nicotine is a drug and should be treated as such.  I'm addicted to cigarettes and feel I should be entitled to the same medical treatment offered to a drug addict and alcoholic.  Like an addict you have to want to quit in order to succeed but I've tried cold turkey and my will to fight goes down the drain.

The Start of my Smoking Habit

I've been a smoker for more than 30 years. I started at the age of 11 when I found an old pack of Kent cigarettes in my mothers dresser draw. She had quit smoking 3 years earlier but never threw them out. You can only imagine how stale they were. The first taste of that cigarette should have been my first and last but instead it was just the beginning for me.

Both my parents smoked along with other family members and many of my friends.  Smoking was very acceptable then.  Smoking made you look cool and smokers were popular.  Three months before my 13th birthday my mother died of cancer. This should have been my second clue not to smoke but it was never mentioned in my house whether the smoking caused her cancer. When someone had cancer back then it was mentioned in a whisper or called the "C" word. 

Did the cigarettes have anything to do with her death?  I'll never know.  No one spoke about my mother's cancer.

Once I began to buy my cigarettes, my brand was Winston. I think we paid somewhere between 25 and 50 cents per pack then.

For the first 3 or 4 years I didn't know how to inhale, but I knew how to make some wicked donuts. From there I taught myself how to exhale the smoke from my nose. Once I learned to do that I figured everyone would think I was inhaling. Eventually none of my friends would give me a cigarette because they would complain I was wasting the cigarette. After numerous coughing fits I began to inhale. The coughing fits were just another ignored clue that I shouldn't smoke.

When I was 15 I switched my brand to Parliament and have been smoking that brand ever since.