It makes no difference what proportion of the population smokes , because their comparison is between rates of disease in smokers versus non-smokers, while ignoring the real (infectious) causal factors. The real reason that people can still get a "smoking related illness" many years after quitting is because the chronic infection is still there.one reason smoking has been blamed for a lot of illness is
because midway through the last century 40% of the population
smoked and an additional 40% had smoked or tried smoking.
with 80% of the population as a base it was easy to blame
smoking for a lot of things. its the main reason they pinned
all that 20-30 years down the road you can still get a smoking
related illness after you quit.
current trends indicate illness in non-risk groups will intercept
illness in at-risk groups.
regards
mike