I read that NYT link and it seems to say the opposite - that smoking does cause cancer.
"What few experts will dispute is the magnitude of the hazard: the World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020 — a third of these in China. Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century, could claim close to a billion in the present century."
Only a third of the people who die from smoking die from cancer. And again, it doesn't seem to be the tobacco but rather the radioactive material and the additives. Cigarette smokers in other countries have vastly lower rates of cancer.
"What few experts will dispute is the magnitude of the hazard: the World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020 — a third of these in China. Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century, could claim close to a billion in the present century."