Just a few smokes.

Women who smoke one to four cigarettes a day die from lung cancer at a rate five times that of nonsmoking women. 

Men who smoke one to four cigarettes a day die from lung cancer at a rate three times that of nonsmoking men.

This from a Norwegian study.

Smokers who believe a few cigarettes a day do not do any harm will need to think again.

Norwegian scientists who studied the health records of 43,000 men and women have shown that even light smoking — less than five cigarettes daily — triples the risk of dying of heart disease or lung cancer.  [five times the risk in women — Erin]

"In both sexes, smoking 1-4 cigarettes per day was associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease and from all causes, and from lung cancer in women," said Dr Aage Tverdal of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo.

My mother died two years ago, at age 54, of adenocarcinoma of the lung that spread to her other organs.   Because adenocarcinoma is not always associated with smoking — and because she was probably not a heavy smoker — I have always been reluctant to blame her cigarette habit.