I would consider myself a libertarian and am therefore opposed to the myriad of inane and insane laws that govern every move we make.  On the smoking front, I have no objection whatsoever to smoke-free pubs or places of work, but I think it should be the right of the people directly concerned to make the choice of their own free will.  If an establisment wants to be smoke-free then fine, but if it doesn’t then it should have that choice too.

If there had been a plebiscite on the subject of the smoking ban then I might feel slightly differently, but this ban was imposed without any discussion whatsoever, which is not the function of government.  A government is there to carry out the wishes of the people and not vice versa.

With regard to the Nanny State – I agree there should be a system of laws in place but it should be there to protect bystanders.  If I want to kill myself through overeating, electrocuting myself or not wearing a seatbelt then that should be my problem.  My personal welfare [through my own actions] should not be the business of government or anyone else.  Where the laws should come into force is only where my actions impinge on others.

That said, since you title this post “a very serious question”, I would like to shift the perspective a little bit. Let’s admit that smoke is not worse than many other social plagues, which affect our health and wellness. Let’s admit that there are interests behind the war on smoking (by the way, do you know of any issue that doesn’t have interests behind? no, seriously). Ok, this is as much as I am willing to admit at this point Under these assumptions, I would be more interested in finding out what the government should do to stop individuals or groups from behaving in ways that affect their own health and wellness. Or whether the government should do anything at all. Think seat belts, drink and drive, drugs, pollution related traffic blocks, smoke, waste recycling and many more things.
How do you reconcile the public interest with the individual’s freedom of choice, the common sense with the epidemy of bad behaviours?
I know you hate the idea of a nanny state. And so do I. But is reliance on individuals’ behaviours the best recipe for their own and the common good?

This, despite the fact that research proves that nicotine is more addictive than most street drugs, so smokers are every bit as addicted as the guys shooting up heroin down the road – who, incidentally, have the NHS bods bending over backwards (and breaking all the rules) to help them.

It’s completely unfair, and unconstitutional, especially when it comes to forcing pubs and clubs not to allow smoking on their premises.

By the way, I’ve never smoked in my life, and in fact I’m highly sensitive to cigarette smoke in the air – it makes me cough and gives me asthma, and within minutes I sound like a gin-drinking, 50-a-day, barrow boy – er, barrow woman. It’s the injustice that gets me. I’d be perfectly happy for smokers to be treated like anyone else and not ostracised, providing there was clean air somewhere for me to breathe. In a place like a cinema, sure, it’s nice to have a ban, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stay there more than five minutes, but in a pub? Come on! What’s wrong with a smoking room? With proper ventilation and an extractor fan, what’s the problem? You’d only go in there if you smoked!

Arhonda – Did the coal dust in the bed sheets not give it away?  I know when I send Herself out to shift a ton or two, she remains black for weeks after.

From http://data-yard.net/10v2/parkinson.htm
“”It is not our intent to promote smoking as a protective measure against Parkinson’s disease,” Evan L. Thacker from Harvard School of Public Health emphasized in comments to Reuters Health. “Obviously smoking has a multitude of negative consequences. Rather, we did this study to try to encourage other scientists…to consider the possibility that neuroprotective chemicals may be present in tobacco leaves.”"
and at the end of the article:
“The observation that smokeless tobacco users also have a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease suggests that the most likely candidates are not compounds generated by combustion, but rather constituents of the tobacco leaves.”
which to me means that TOBACCO might have some beneficial properties. That doesn’t automatically make smoking a healthy habit though, as the researchers state clearly.

The http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7703749?dopt=?AbstractPlus article tries to verify a genetics based hypothesis about the cause of “the inverse relation between smoking history and early onset Alzheimer’s disease”, and fails to do so.

But a later study published by the some research group (three authors contributed to both articles) states “Smoking was associated with a doubling of the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease”
Link here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9652667?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=3&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

I haven’t read “Smoke Screens” yet.

This is the point.  We have been indoctrinated with the concept of smoking being dangerous for so long that it is now as immutable in the public psyche as sunrise in the morning.  But once I realised that virtually the entire house of cards is built on false data and incredibly bad surveys, it suddenly all made sense.  The anti-smoking propaganda is just that – propaganda.

For many many centuries, nicotine has been used in medication.  It has well known healing powers and is still used to this day, though they tend not to use the word ‘nicotine’ now for obvious reasons.

Just as an example, smoking lowers the risk of Parkinson’s Disease -

http://data-yard.net/10v2/parkinson.htm

Similarly smoking reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s tenfold -

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7703749?dopt=?AbstractPlus

They are just two examples out of many.

I think maybe it is time to start an all out revolution against the ban.

But not against coffee.