Thanks for the idea for comparing against smoking! I just may create a comparison for that in the future. :)

Depicting the exponential growth was definitely the hardest challenge of this visualization for me. I didn't want to just use a logarithmic bar/column chart because I find them boring and that people don't really understand them visually, so I opted to try something less conventional. I remembered this style of chart from somewhere and tried to at least hint at the increasing values (besides the explicit legend) with a red gradient and increasingly larger { brackets on the left. Any tips for how I could show this better? I'm pretty new to data visualization and am looking to learn.