Oh there is no doubt that the psychological addiction is quite substantial. And in all people one can be more compelling than the other.
But the physical addictive properties of nicotine, which are very substantial, have been know for well over 30 years, long before the cigarette nazi's came to power.
Depends on your definition of "addiction." Until anti-smoker crusader C. Everett Koop changed that definition in 1989 (it wasn't officially accepted until 1996), smoking was a "habituation." Now, of course, the term has been so corrupted it covers everything from video games to sex to chocolate--just so it could include smoking.
From the Harvard School of Medicine: "Distinctions Among Use, Abuse, Dependence, and Addiction" - "Even under most established constructions of addiction, not all drug dependent patients evidence addictive behavior. For example, in most civilized countries, under nearly all traditional circumstances, people who are nicotine dependent do not evidence addiction with its attendant anti-social behavior pattern."
And from Surgeon General Luther Terry: ""Undoubtedly, the smoking habit becomes compulsive in some heavy smokers but the drive to compulsion appears to be solely psychogenic since physical dependence does not develop to nicotine or to other constituents of tobacco, nor does tobacco, either during its use or following withdrawal, create psychotoxic effects which lead to antisocial behavior...In contrast to drugs of addiction, withdrawal from tobacco never constitutes a threat to life. These facts indicate clearly the absence of physical dependence." --'Relationship of Smoking to Use of Addicting Drugs' (Surgeon General Luther L. Terry's Report on Smoking and Health)
Ask yourself how, if smoking is so damned addictive, there are 48 million ex-smokers in this country today, and the vast majority of them quit without "smoking cessation" aids and products.