Since 1964, when Luther L. Terry, then–surgeon general of the United States, issued a report declaring that smoking causes lung cancer and other life-threatening diseases, tobacco use has been recognized in the United States as a serious health risk. In the forty years since the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health was released, research has linked smoking to coronary heart disease, serious respiratory problems such as asthma and emphysema, cataracts, and a variety of cancers in addition to lung cancer.

While many men stopped tobacco use as a result of the heightened awareness of tobacco’s risks—the percentage of male smokers is almost half of what it was in the 1960s— women have been much slower to respond. Women’s smoking has declined by only 35 percent since the 1960s, with lung cancer...