To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question. Well, not anymore. Recently, the World Health Organization has pushed 146 nations around to the world to adopt anti-smoking legislation for public venues and to enforce the laws once passed. This marks just the latest advancement in the backlash against public smoking.

In December 2005, the Washington state Congress passed legislation that banned smoking in many public venues, including restaurants, bars, bowling alleys and non-tribal casinos.

All of these bans have attempted to decrease the carcinogenic effects of secondhand smoke for non-smokers in public, as well as to indirectly eliminate smoking altogether.

Given that numerous college students still smoke, these legislative actions should expectedly have a positive effect. Despite the seemingly prolific amount of knowledge regarding the dangers of smoking, numerous young adults are still quite eager to start. Is it that smoking is still considered socially acceptable or "cool" by some groups of people?

According to a Newsweek article, "The tobacco industry knows that if you ban smoking entirely in public places and work places it will encourage smokers to reduce their consumption and encourage them to quit. It also reduces the chances that people will initiate the habit. The industry says second-hand smoke is a nuisance. It's not a nuisance. It's deadly. It's lethal. It's a Class A carcinogen."

This theory is not unfounded. Logic dictates that if public smoking is made inconvenient and deemed socially unacceptable, then people will abandon the practice altogether. In our health-obsessed society, it is confounding why anyone would still engage in such an asinine and archaic practice. The "cool" factor surrounding smoking surely cannot exist anymore. Of course, when people are drunk, smoking seems to become exponentially more desirable.

Thankfully, Hollywood too is jumping on backlash bandwagon against socially acceptable forms of smoking.

According to an article in USA Today, "Underage smoking has always been considered behavior that could warrant a tougher rating, the MPAA said in its release. Now, 'all smoking ... and depictions that glamorize smoking or ... feature pervasive smoking outside of an historic or other mitigating context' could warrant a more prohibitive rating, the organization said."

In essence, glamorized smoking on film will warrant an "R" rating. Such a rating could inhibit a film's ability to earn high profits at the box office. Ironically, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is basically using the film rating system to manipulate filmmakers into complying with its content-based standards. While this may have a positive effect on diminishing underage smoking, it may also have an off-putting effect on the creative content of film.

Films that contain smoking will not necessarily receive an "R" rating; rather, the MPAA will consider three questions in such cases: whether the smoking is pervasive, if the movie glamorizes smoking and if there is a historic or other mitigating context for the smoking.

However, one has to remain a bit apprehensive as to whether a tougher rating system will actually decrease underage smoking. While smoking may literally decrease in motion pictures, television still contains a great deal of glamorized smoking.

Often, smoking adds to the creative credibly of an actor's performance. Even more importantly, teenagers are stubborn and will choose to smoke whether or not actors in films do it. In the short term, I doubt that such a rating system will have a significant impact on underage smoking and, more importantly, on smoking altogether.

Despite the obvious flaws in these recent anti-smoking advancements, the endgame is completely clear. The long-term goal of our nation, and apparently the world, is to completely eradicate smoking from human society.

If we do so, it just may increase the longevity of human life. Given all of the problems that plague the world, this seems like an easily accessible problem — one that when effectively addressed will undoubtedly save thousands of lives.

We are all educated enough to admit that smoking is truly bad for us and is simply no longer "cool." It is time that we abandon this archaic practice.