Smoking has since long been a notorious killer. It is a medical fact that it causes cancer and other serious heart problems. Although millions die of smoking worldwide every year, yet no country has shown any real concern to ban it totally. One obvious reason is that the manufacture and sale of cigarettes generate huge revenue for the governments and the other being that strong lobbies of vested interests dubiously prevent its ban. It is also agonizingly true that smoking kills the innocent passive smokers too, who though are non-smokers but being in close range of the smokers, they involuntarily inhale their smoke, which is just as harmful. The pity is that while the smokers smoke of their own volition, unconcerned of the consequences, the passive smokers are the unfortunate victims of their vicious vice. If the smokers wish to escape untimely death or serious tobacco related illnesses, its imperative that they for their own sake and those around them, including their family, quit smoking right away before the die is cast and their dreams painfully go up in smoke. FAROOQ ZAMAN, Lahore, June 25.