I'm not upset. I just think that they are silly and will cause not a few businesses to close. People do all kinds of dangerous things,but that is their choice. I don't see why smoking should be singled out. Maybe my attack was a bit over the top,but you come across as a person who would love to control others lives.
Literally, about this stuff I just care about minimizing significant risks of death and injury. In more general terms, I believe people should be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt themselves or others (unnecessarily). I can see how it seems a bit radical to some to throw in "themselves", but generally limited self-harm gives people much longer, happier lives. As people here have admitted, they don't need smoking, drinking, or the like to be happy or have a good time and those things DO cause significant injury. So it isn't like I am against fun or anything.
If someone gives themselves a little poison every day for whatever reason, and it kills them at 60 instead of living 30 more happy years, I view that as an immense tragedy. Generally I'd say whatever motives that person had were definitely unhealthy in a psychological sense. It's a less obvious sort of problem than someone who is severely depressed, but it still seems like a problem to me.
Of course, the vast majority of the time people who do something like this just don't think the poison can hurt them and ignore warnings, and I don't see any need to protect willful ignorance when it causes harm. To me this is a bit like free speech. I'm in favor of free speech, but when speech is used to incite violence or cause harm ("fire" in a theatre), then it must be restricted. I'm similarly in favor of person liberty in the same way, though it has the added wrinkle of having the capability to inflict self-harm. Generally though, it would seem that keeping people HEALTHY allows them to do more things and be happier than ignoring health concerns. That seems worthwhile to me.
And it isn't like the free market handles this sort of thing well, which is why I am in favor of government interference. Take food, for instance. Capitalist motives would encourage companies to get people to eat more and more food, since people that consume tons of calories will give food providers more money. This clearly goes against the individual interests in health. Equally clearly, companies have indeed focused on food that gets people to eat more and more, rather than working economies of scale on healthier food in more sensible portions. It seems quite sensible then for the government to step in and adjust things a bit so the market functions better for the People.
This is all complicated by the fact companies have it in their interests to make people WANT unhealthy things that will kill them sooner. This is a kind of a psychological game of manipulating the consumer, and it is one they've gotten rather skilled at. So should we act like people can't be manipulated into wanting things that aren't good for them? Should we act like there's some magical free will that overrides the deterministic nature of the human brain? I don't think so. We should instead act knowing that brains in general tend to respond to things in certain ways and companies try to use that for all it is worth for their own ends. Hence, where appropriate the government should step in and adjust things with regards to companies and products.
Basic safety is a bit similar in many regards. People tend to view themselves as immune to potential injury and different from average. This is especially true when young. It's similarly reasonable, imho, for the State to help ensure people don't get killed because of such misguided beliefs and flawed reasoning.
That's my viewpoint on the matter. Societies should be setup to maximize happiness and minimize suffering. The government has a role to play in that. Part of maximize happiness is allowing as much freedom as is possible. Part of minimizing suffering is bearing in mind that some particular things are needlessly dangerous and their use should be curtailed in whatever way works best. All in all though, we're not talking about that many restrictions regarding freedom.
I don't think smoking is particularly special in this regard. And if a few businesses close during a change, well, that's a shame, but one has to prepare for some upheaval when changes are made. Certainly whenever the USA ends up adopting universal health care, a lot of jobs will be lost over time. That doesn't mean it isn't a good idea or that the economy won't adapt. Smoking restrictions seem similar to this.
and no-one should have the right to tell me I can't do these things.
