You smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes and quit. Are you implying that because you had such an easy time quitting, everyone else should too? That would be anecdotal, don't you think?
Coming from someone who used to smoke 2 packs a day, the addiction wasn't from the cigarettes themselves. It was from the life I had. I was depressed, had a dead end job, a shit relationship, family problems, etc. I tried to quit a number of times, but had many difficulties due to the fact that everything around me was constantly on fire.
I finally quit when things picked up. It was still a challenge going from around 40 cigarettes a day to none (cold turkey), and I ended up saying some things I definitely shouldn't have in the process, but I did it.
It's a similar story for many smokers. Also, if anything, it was blown out of proportion in the 90's. Things seem to have calmed down since then.