Again, the article explains:
"I can vividly recall in the first couple of weeks into my first clinical rotation watching an elderly man with end-stage emphysema literally suffocate and die on my shift wearing just a venti mask. It was a clarion moment for me as a young health care professional even though I never smoked."
Costs to health care system also impact everyone. Though in the USA private insurers are starting to pass on some of the costs to smokers. And it could be argued that smokers often die young enough to offset health care costs of later life.
This is why we've banned smoking in restaurants and have designated areas. That's enough Government intervention although my personal take on this would be to leave it up to restaurants to manage this decision. If they don't want smokers in their restaurants, they can choose to ban them. If you don't like smoke in restaurants, don't go to ones that allow indoor smoking. This is a bilateral choice for a non-essential service (restaurants). But, we've handed over the power to Gov in this case. Too late. I would be OK for Gov to mandate a sign outside the restaurant that informs customers if it is smoking/non-smoking as it would be horrible if you sit down for a meal and all of a sudden someone next to you just lights a Cigarette.
I remember living in the 90s where every restaurant allowed smoking indoors; smoking section or not, the stench and irritability of the smoke permeated the entire space. It was impossible to get away from, other than simply not patronizing restaurants. To this day, I experience an immediate headache when cigarette smoke wafts in my direction.
The question is: Why does somebody's unhealthy habit get to travel with them and affect people around them everywhere they go?
I have no problem with people smoking Marijuana but people need to be more considerate.
Second hand smoke = direct
Economic impact = indirect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will
In some contexts we are creatures of cause and effect, interdependent on many chance things. Even yawning is not solely a matter of sovereignty.
My thoughts may not control your thoughts but still the analysis of more than one person at a time is useful.
Having more pleasurable life when young while trading for a more gruesome death after 80 is not that bad of trade off.
There was a joke:
- Drinking, smoking and whoring shorten your life with 6 years. - Which six? Between 92 and 98 - take it.