Marketing or addiction?

I wonder, why in Germany, everyone smokes. Why is smoking so well accepted, so run-of-the-mill and not even discussed as an issue?

And then while I was shopping at the Nahkauf next to our house. I knew the answer. Thanks to several marketing geniuses, cigarettes are always kept at the counter, where everyone invariably has to pass through. A person who is trying to quit is invariably weakened into buying, by simply glancing at a variety of options.

Would this be ethical and responsible marketing? Shouldn’t marketers and shop layout designers seriously re-consider displaying cigarette options at a less attractive place in the store?

By 

Anuja Hariharan

Karlsruhe, Germany