>>>In my young and crazy years I did drink too much (the quip about washing away brain cells definately was true back then) and in the young and stupid years I was a smoker - there might have been some overlap ;-)
>
>Latest evidence I saw was that 5 years after stopping smoking, the risks are similar to those of somebody who never smoked. The trick is to quit 5 years before you get the cancer: around 86% of lung cancers are smoking-related.

I doubt whether that is entirely true. Johan Cruif, Europe's best soccer player of the 20th century quit smoking about 20 years ago when he got a heart attack. He was a very heavy smoker up to his middle 40-ties. Guess what, he now got lung cancer. I find it a bit hard to believe his cancer is unrelated to his past.

I've got real problems with the 'evidence' of those research cases. In most cases it is way too thin. Since cancers are slow developing and often appear decades later, I do not hold much fate in such conclusions.