quittin' smoking

[Mike Yacht]

I'm fully convinced that while the legal justification for anti-smoking laws
may be carcinogens, the real underlying reason is that smoking is offensive
to non-smokers.  If offensive body odor were as prevalent as cigarette
smoking, I bet you'd see laws pending on that too.   

And, unlike some, I see no problem with that.  If people cannot take it upon
themselves to give courtesy to those around them without legislation, then
clearly (in my opinion) a law is perfectly valid that forces them to do so,
so long as the action is not in-and-of-itself harmful.   And I doubt anyone
would go so far on this mailing list as to say quitting smoking or not being
allowed to smoke in a public place causes them harm (although doubtless
someone will now try to pull in social-harm or somesuch).

Yet again, there are numerous laws on the books that do this that people
don't have problems with because the number of offenders was relatively
small as compared to the offended.  Smoking is so prevalent that those
ratios are much less in favor of the offended (but still in their favor).