Why do you suppose they call them cancer sticks?

There’s an anti-smoking ad in yesterday’s paper that has really got my ire up. It’s a joint venture of Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation (whatever the fuck that probably-publicly-funded boondoggle is) and American Legacy Foundation (ditto, but since it’s national, even more so).
It’s a letter from a woman who has emphysema after smoking for many years. She apologizes to her family and to her children for the fact that she’s dying before her time.
Then she tells the tobacco companies that they should be apologizing to her for killing her with their products. “You stole my dignity. You killed the spirit of a beautiful young woman. And the worst is yet to come. For that, you should be sorry.”
Um. At the risk of spoiling this beautiful denouement with a dose of reality: YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SMOKED THE CIGARETTES, STUPID. You could have stopped. You knew they were dangerous (the government has been telling you for over 40 years). Damn, you probably could have bought some nice shit with the money you blew over the years on butts. But no, the devil (or someone pretty much like him) made you smoke those cigarettes. That emphysema you’ve got isn’t your fault, no, not at all, right?
WRONG.
Same old load of bullshit we’ve been hearing for years. Nobody has any sense of personal responsibility anymore. I am damned sick and tired of hearing about some wheezing, cancer-ridden idiot maligning tobacco companies for causing his or her condition. I am also damned sick and tired of hearing some fat fucker blame McDonalds or Hersheys or some other purveyor of foodstuffs for the fact that they’re dangerously obese.
NOBODY TELLS YOU TO DO THESE THINGS TO YOURSELF. If you want to know who to blame, LOOK IN A MIRROR. If you have no self-control, don’t expect to be a slim, buff, ageless specimen of humanity, because those attributes begin in your own mind. Put down that fucking Big Mac and stub out that cancer stick and get right with yourself. But don’t blame someone else, and don’t think you’re going to make someone else pay for the suffering you’ve brought on yourself.
Full disclosure: It is very difficult for me to say this kind of thing about smokers. My father was a smoker, and it finally killed him at 76. My wife is a smoker and in all probability will never stop, no matter what she says. It is an insidious habit, and it is all but impossible to break once you have it.
Yet people do break it. And people do lose weight and keep it off.
Sadly, too many people would rather go to court for the chance at gazillions of dollars rather than actually do something about their problems. And that’s really terribly bad, given what this country is all about.
(For what it’s worth, I smoke a pipe and cigars occasionally in social situations. I wouldn’t smoke a cigarette at my own execution.)