Sidebar: Why is it surprising to anyone that these things happen? Our society has chosen, and continues to create incentives, to wipe out the use of tobacco. Instruments as varied as federal and state law, political grandstanding, medical insurance punishment, and social pressures are in play.
In fairness, those on the crusade do have decades of evidence on their side. I think our best defense is that there are probably bigger problems for the world to solve. As a community, unlike the connoisseurs of spirits for example, we don't seem to acknowledge that our hobby has a dark addictive side, that excessive use is unhealthy, and we generally don't watch out for those of our number who are very likely harming themselves by overdoing it. If we were less concerned with abstract freedoms and saber-rattling, and more concerned with realism and acting with moderation, we might get less "help" from others.
Just my two cents.
Planetary returns from a hiatus to drop truthbombs on us.
I will say that I think overall, bars and restaurants have become more pleasant for most people since smoking bans. The one thing that drives me nuts is that in some of the laws, there is no provision for an exception. In Chicago, for instance, if you made 50% of your sales from tobacco products, you were exempt. What this meant is that one could still smoke in Iwan Ries. Here in Missoula, there is no such provision, and the tobacco shop is non-smoking, which is pretty confusing to me.
As a sidebar,iIt's always surprising to me the number and severity of negative interactions some have with 'smoke nazi treehuggers,' as someone above put it.* In ten years of smoking a pipe all around America, I can't think of a single time anyone has confronted me about my smoking. Could it be luck on my part? Maybe. It might also be that I try to be courteous. I don't consider this a real vice, but there are those who do, and I don't want to force my smoke on them. So I smoke on my porch and while walking through parks and the like. If I pass someone, I take the pipe out of my mouth fifty feet before we pass. No big deal for me, since it reminds me to slow down anyway. I don't sit within thirty feet or so of anyone I don't know while smoking. This made it difficult to smoke a pipe in Seattle when I was there for a week last year, but that's a small price to pay for never having negative interactions with people.
*Two subpoints here. First, Godwin's law comes into play on the first post. Second, if there weren't people protecting the wild places of America, they'd pretty much have all been developed and sold by now. No thanks. I really like having a couple million untouched acres within two hours of my town. If that makes me a treehugger, I'm fine with that.