My father a”h refused to stop smoking cigars no matter what we tried. My mother stopped smoking cigarettes (when i was 10, a habit from Auschwitz) when we kept breaking them and it cost her too much money and effort to replace them. She lived till past her 90th birthday and just passed away Succos time. But my father was more stubborn than we were and he didn’t stop till he had a massive coronary when he was 65 Erev Rosh Hashana. It scared us all to death. He stopped smoking immediately and he needed bypass surgery. His bypass lasted only 6 years and he died of another massive coronary in 1992. He cheated us out of the best years of his life, the time he could spend with his grandchildren, the opportunity to walk down at their chupas, to meet his great-grandchildren and share our nachas.
Was it worth it? NO! Can we say it was his time to go, maybe or maybe he cheated himself out of a longer life because he chose to smoke and didn’t heed Hashem’s warning to take care of the body Hahsem lent him. We will never know. What we do know is that we needed him, that he was my best friend in the whole world and I missed and still miss not having him here.
So before you go ahead and defend smokers and their right to smoke remember that their families have rights to. WE have the right to have them around!!! We have the right to not have second hand smoke effect us, our lungs, our clothes, our homes, our belongings, our clothes, our rugs, our sheitels, our hair, etc. and we have the right to have the people we invest our love and affection for be around for a long, long time to share our joy and sorrow with, and to be around for our ups and downs. WE are in it for the long haul and WE have a right to expect them to be committed to US and not to their tobacco!
So NO a thousand times NO, I would NEVER, EVER marry nor allow my children, grandchildren, great-granchildren to marry a smoker. EVER!