Why is smoking so beautiful and attractive?

It's not about smoking as such, but about people who smoke, if they are attractive and you want to get close to them or be like them, then one of the options is to start doing the same, imitate.

About attractiveness, I can add that this is one of the few legally available drugs

I don't understand what you found handsome and attractive in smoking. In fact, it is a shameful and disgusting habit. Of course, a smoking person can be perceived somehow aesthetically on the screen, and even then, only because there we are shown only a part of the true picture. That is, we do not smell smoke, do not see his yellow fingers, blackened lungs and how he constantly spits on the ground, do not think that he is addicted to this habit, that he suffers when he cannot get his nicotine dose on time. , and how he constantly dreams of quitting, but he doesn't succeed.

I think cinema plays a part here. In almost every film, some cool main character smokes, while gazing into the distance dramatically. The hero shot a cloud of enemies, accompanying all this with a series of epic explosions. He took a cigar, set it on fire with a burning hundred dollar bill, and watches as the bleeding main villain unsuccessfully tries to get to the too far away pistol.

Or some stern, slightly overgrown with stubble or just a brutal detective, leafing through the sea of ​​crime chronicles on his desk with a lamp (the only source of light in the room), smokes a cigarette, washing it down with cold whiskey. He looks cool, he looks serious and stern. We love this style. In life, we (well, many) want to look the same, this is how this tough guy in this film.

There are countless examples of such examples, because many of us, I'm sure, have watched a lot of similar films (the same Tarantino).
I think that in the entire history of cinema, where in such scenarios the heroes smoked, people could not fail to develop a conviction somewhere in the subconscious that smoking is beautiful and attractive.

ps I'm looking forward to a really nice, competent and detailed answer.