It hasn’t been that many decades since the era of the smoking celebrity. At one time, celebrity smoking was so commonplace that you could not see a movie without someone lighting up, or pass a billboard without smoking celebrities expounding the virtues of one brand or the other. Celebrity smokers were everywhere, from television commercials to magazine ads to puffing away on the silver screen. The celebrities who smoked did so in all honesty. They in fact did smoke off screen and many probably believed in the so-called medicinal value of cigarettes.

Of course, the time of smoking stars began to come to an end as science began to reveal just how wrong everyone had been about smoking. You began to see fewer celebrities smoking in public, as more of them became aware of the health issues. The male celebrity smoking list became a shorter one, as well as the female start list. It took much less time to identify which starts smoke cigarettes. As the celebrity smoking list got shorter, there was a temporary upswing in pictures of celebrities smoking pot. Fortunately, economics won out and celebrities smoking pot either gave up the habit or learned to puff away from the prying cameras of the media.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when the concept of the smoking celebrity is beginning to revive. This can be especially difficult to take in light of all we know about the dangers of smoking, and the fact that so many people draw their sense of what is acceptable behavior from these very public figures. Stars who smoke today are not quite up to the point of announcing what brand cigarettes celebrities smoke most often, but celebrity cigarette smokers are beginning to influence our young people once again.

The new smoking celebrity usually appeals to the younger crowd and often has a disdain for anything that is considered to be something that is usual and not very exciting. This image begins to give smoking a bit of the appeal it once had, even though so many people do understand how dangerous smoking can be. Celebrities smoking today don’t do it much in order to appear sophisticated, but rather more as a way of expressing individuality. Of course, there are celebrities who quit smoking and lend their names to anti-smoking campaigns, but there is still a need to defuse any vestiges of smoking as being acceptable from our society. The smoking celebrity, like all of us, should be able to make decisions on personal conduct, but those habits, which could place their fans in danger, should at least be practiced away from the media. In short, the smoking celebrity can choose to run the risk of disease and death by smoking if he or she chooses, but they do not have the right to lure their fans into following the same path.