Death is Inevitable
+Every person who smokes, is going to die
Every person who never smokes, is going to die
+Every person who is "overweight", is going to die
Every person who is never "overweight", is going to die
+Every person who uses illicit drugs, is going to die
Every person who never uses illicit drugs, is going to die
+Every person who drinks alcohol, is going to die
Every person who never drinks alcohol, is going to die
+Every person who fails to heed the advice of health advocates, is going to die
Every person who devotedly follows all the advice of health advocates, is going to die

Now the question comes - since we are all going to die, no matter what precautions we may take is it justifiable for health advocates to force people to conform to certain lifestyles which those advocates claim will maximize the length of a person's life?Death is inevitable, but health advocates such as the anti-smoking industry claim that they are justified in using punitive pressures of various kinds to force people to conform to their definitio of healthy lifestyle".

The argument from "natural death"
Most people would probably agree that it is preferable for a person's death to be a "natural" death - but what does that mean? The only definition of a natural death, in medical science, comes from pathologists. Their definition is this; "A natural death is a death that results from a natural disease process, distinct from a death that results from accident or violence."All of the smoking related deaths involve natural disease processes; cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema - these are all "natural disease processes". Smoking-related deaths are "natural" deaths.

The argument from "premature death"
The concept of "premature" death is entirely statistical. A "premature death" is a death which occurs before the average age of death within a given population.According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), the average age of death by all causes in North America in 1994 was 70 years of age. An analysis of the CDC's own figures for the years 1990-1994 showed that the average age of death for smoking-related deaths was 71.9 years of age.Some smoking-related deaths are therefore, statistically "premature" - but many are not. About 17% of smoking-related deaths occur at ages greater than 85, fewer than O.5 % of smoking-related deaths occur at ages less than 35.
It may be true that the incidence of chronic degenerative illnesses in the elderly population occur at lower rates for non-smokers, non-drinkers and those who have never been "over-weight", but that does not mean such persons have any guarantee that they will never develop these illnesses. Even if you were a health fanatic from the day you were born, the longer you live the greater the likelihood becomes that you will develop some kind of chronic degenerative illness. Human beings do not have a "life energy" that gets used up as time goes on, causing us to mysteriously die, in perfect health, in our sleep when it 'runs out'.One of the world's most renowned pathologists, Dr. Ludwig Aschoff, stated that he had never found a case of purely natural death: autopsy had always revealed some pathological process as a cause.Dr. Hans Selye of Montreal, probably the world's leading authority on human stress, asserted that in all his autopsies he has never yet seen a man who died simply of "old age", nor does he think anyone ever has.

Since death cannot be eliminated, the health sciences can only exchange one cause of death with another
Life expectancy at birth within the industrialised nations grew considerably in the 20th century, from about age 35 for men and 37 years for women in 1900 to about age 70 for men and 77 years for women in 1994. The term "premature death" clearly is more meaningful in relation to persons who die between the ages of twenty-five and forty, than it is in relation to persons who die between ages of sixty-five and eighty.You will see, from the charts below - that the tragedy of people being struck down at say, age twenty or thirty by tuberculosis, influenza or pneumonia was quite prevalent in 1900 - but deaths from cancer and heart disease were substantially more rare at that time. That's not because there were no people who smoked or drank or ate more than they probably should - it's because the chronic degenerate illnesses take time to develop. If you died of influenza at age 27, you hadn't had time to develop lung cancer - even if you'd started smoking at the age of 12.