The best there is at what he does, and what he does is create smokers?

And it ignores the fact that teen smoking has been going down for more than a decade, and I think it's more likely to be the aggressive marketing campaigns and not a general increase in the quality of parenting.

Whether this specific case is an overreaction or not, the general rule is that human beings are very impressionable.

 

Exactly. And the restrictions on the marketing of tobacco products keep getting tougher, which is a very good thing. That was a big part of the bill passed by congress last week (there is a thread on the politics board).

The outcry here is silly, but kids do smoke more when they see more adults looking cool doing it. We're not talking about mature human beings making these decisions. We're talking about boys and girls in middle school or starting high school.