Editor's Note: More than a half million African Americans have died from smoking-related diseases over the past decade. That's enough people to fill the cities of Atlanta, New Orleans, Kansas City, Mo., or Cleveland, Ohio. Yet, 'cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States', according to the Centers for Disease Control. Then why are so many Black people dying from cigarettes and why is it so difficult to quit? This eight-part series - ''Nicotine Addiction'' - seeks to explore these questions by featuring real people, real circumstances, and real answers.

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Twelve years ago, Henry W. 'Chuck' Richardson became a convicted felon after an illegal drug violation.

After 23 years of shooting up heroin, an addiction that started during the Vietnam war, he was finally able to break free from the drug while serving jail time and has now been 'clean' for 12 years. Clean of heroine, that is, but not drug-free.

Like millions of former users of illegal substances, Richardson, a Marine machine gunner with two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry simply doesn't have the brawn to give up cigarettes. The drug he now craves is nicotine.

'It's not a matter of logic,' he tries to explain his once two-pack-a-day habit that he has now been able to hone down to a half pack. 'I can't explain it. There is no high. There is no rewarding feeling. It's just a desire to inhale. It's quite an absurd phenomenon. At the end of every cigarette I'm saying, 'Why did I smoke it? I don't want it.' And within 10 minutes the urge is right back.'

It's no secret. On May 17, 1988, nearly 19 years ago, Surgeon General C. Edward Coop issued a 618-page report on addictions in which he said cigarettes are as addictive as heroine and cocaine.

'The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine,'' the report concluded.

The information led to tougher laws regulating sales to minors, but left adults, like Richardson, struggling.

'It's just difficult. And I've had event after event to occur that seems to make it more difficult to stop,' says Richardson, 59, whose wife and mother died last year only months apart. Magnify those circumstances times the everyday stresses of being Black in America and cigarettes serve the same medicating purpose as a hard drug, says Robert Robertson, a medical doctor and former associate director of the Office of Minority Health at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

'This country continues to have a policy of criminalization in regard to drugs like cocaine and heroine and marijuana. But, when you look at the consequences of cocaine and marijuana and heroine compared to tobacco, tobacco kills far more people than those drugs combined. They make far more people sick compared to those drugs,' says Robertson. 'If you're thinking what kinds of programs would we need based on mortality and morbidity, tobacco would be the number one drug that you would be attempting to attack.'

Robertson also confirmed that racial oppression could also be among the reasons that African Americans struggle harder to quit smoking.

'The environment that African Americans live in is just 10 times more stressful than that experienced by Whites because of the issues that African Americans have to deal with,' Robertson says. 'Whether it's the stress of driving a car and wondering if you're going to be profiled to the stress of looking at a job that's not available to you because of lack of education, whether it's the absence of social support in the African American community; the fragmentation resulting from issues of underemployment, poor housing, racism, all of those factors, I think leads to a tremendous amount of pressure, a tremendous amount of stress and you see that in terms of the inability of African Americans to quit smoking.

Among other factors that cause African Americans to struggle to quit smoking:
∑ The lack of availability of smoking cessation programs in the Black community.
Richardson says he is about to join such a program through the Veterans' Administration Hospital in Richmond, Va., where he lives. But, Robertson says such programs are rare in the Black community.
∑ The fact that three out of four African Americans smoke mentholated cigarettes.
A CDC report, 'Pathways to Freedom', says that three out of four Black smokers buy mentholated cigarettes, the most dangerous of all brands.
'Chemicals are added to menthol cigarettes to give them a fresh, minty taste. This can make it easier for a smoker to inhale deeply, which may allow more chemicals to enter the lungs,' the report states.
∑ The fact that mentholated cigarettes are marketed in the Black community, purposely targeting Blacks.
'The tobacco industry is profoundly skilled at understanding the dynamics of a community, understanding the issues, understanding the kinds of imagery and words that click with a community. And they will build a campaign around that understanding and the result is that it works,' says Robertson. 'They targeted White people with the [Marlboro man] cowboy. The tobacco industry, they don't care if you're Black, White blue or green. It's pure dollars and cents. And they will exploit any vulnerability in the community.'
∑ The fact that, until recently - few organizations that normally defend the rights of African Americans have stood up to say that targeting Blacks for the addiction of cigarettes is wrong.

'The tobacco industry penetrated the African American community, not simply with marketing campaigns and advertisements and imagery and words,' says Robertson. 'But it penetrated the African American community with money. It put money into every African American organization that you can think of.'

Some research has indicated that some people are genetically and environmentally inclined to be more addictive than others. Robertson says there is no proof that African Americans are among this group.

'Those studies are 50-50. There seems to be an underlying genetic predictor of addiction,' Robertson says. 'But, there really has been no African Americans or Blacks in those studies so none of those studies help to answer the question of is there a genetic underpinning.'

Even as a three-year partnership of six Black community organizations, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, ended earlier this month, Robertson says it has never been clearer how dire the need is for escalated anti-smoking and cessation programs in the Black community.

'We know that African Americans want to quit. They express a desire to quit at a higher level than Whites. We know that when they quit they are more likely to go back to smoking than Whites,' Robertson says.

More than 45,000 African Americans a year die of smoking-related diseases.

'It's a world view that says, 'Oh my God, heroine and cocaine and marijuana are horrible. Tobacco on the other hand is backed by RJ Reynolds and Phillip Morris and thousands and thousands of dollars go into the coffers of politicians. Therefore, we do not have a legislative policy that deals with the issue that tobacco is the number one preventable cause of death in this country.'

Richardson is a living witness: 'I won't stop trying,' he says. 'No.'

Hazel Trice Edney is an NNPA Washington correspondent. Roshni Roundtree, a writer for the Capstone News Service, contributed to this article.