no smoking

Ireland, I heard, and maybe all of the UK.

I think most of the European countries

No Federal Law against smoking but most States have some kind of restriction.

From Wiki---
As of March 2010, 26 states have enacted statewide bans on smoking in all enclosed public places, including bars and restaurants: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas (effective July 1, 2010), Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (effective May 1, 2010), Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin (effective July 5, 2010).

However, these states exempt a variety of places from their respective smoking bans. All except Delaware, Montana, Utah, Vermont, and Washington exempt tobacconists. All except Michigan and Vermont allow hotels and motels to designate a certain percentage of smoking rooms. Many also exempt or do not cover casinos (9), private clubs (7), cigar bars (12), and/or certain small workplaces (7).

Joe(put that out. It stinks.)Nation

Canada, too. In fact, you can't smoke at all on the Prince George airport's grounds - only in your car. And we have a policy for 'No Smoking for several metres distance' from doors to public buildings in many cities, too.

It's because the medical profession wants everybody down in the dumps with all imagination stifled and living into the 90s so that they can stride onward in their bid to become the most powerful force in the land with most of the population dependent upon them for the exploding number of treatments required for those two states.

Aided and gleefully abetted by the most abject bunch of control freaks and concerned and compassionate busy-bodies and do-gooders that have ever been gathered together in the whole history of the known universe, all of whom display a doleful countenance which Dom Quixote would have envied and who bore the arse off everybody they come into contact with for those moments of just sufficient duration to allow addresses to be exchanged so that Christmas card lists can be displayed as proof of how many friends they have.

Not being smokers themselves they avoid the taxes which are levied on the dried leaves of the tobacco plant which, from an economic point of view, are as cheap as dried cabbage leaves but after tax are £6 a pack (about $9 in funny money). UK tobacco tax collects £10,000,000,000 per year.

And the next generation has to wait so long for the wills to be read, assuming there is anything left, that it must have given up all hope of inheriting anything other than a wasteland.

At the point where the medical profession and its lickspittles and lackeys in coalition with those being kept going by increasingly expensive measures, and the weaving of the longwordist winds, can outvote the rest, the game is up.

"GRAND RAPIDS -- With his fingers curled around a Marlboro Light and a gin and tonic in the other hand, Randy Dawe mused on the unfairness of a state smoking ban approved Thursday by the state Legislature.

Next spring, he won't be able to inhale at his favorite tavern, Bob's Sports Bar, 725 Michigan St. NE. Meanwhile, people who frequent casinos still will be able to light up.

Michigan will go smoke-free in May once Gov. Jennifer Granholm signs a workplace smoking ban, which includes bars, restaurants and private clubs. It will become the 38th state to do so."

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2009/12/new_michigan_smoking_ban_in_wo.html

Personally, I think it's a good thing. Inconvenient, yes. But just as those who smoke have the right to do so, those who do not smoke have the right to clean air while they are in public.

We have local laws that prohibit smoking in all public spaces. Personally, as an employer, I don't hire smokers. I find they waste an incredible amount of time indulging in their addiction and then you have to smell them when they return from whatever little hidey hole they were smoking in. My brother, who has a company of about 45 people, doesn't hire them to keep his health insurance rates lower.

That's an argument for banning exhaust pipes in motor vehicles and factories.

That the smoker's smoke is seen or smelled and the other products of exhausts are not is neither here nor there.

The sensed smoke of the smoker, a free gift of the active ingredient, is useful for the purposes of having indignation frenzies and drawing attention to the self. It's a convenient and easy excuse to vent pent up agression and it gets easier as it becomes more acceptable to those who can't afford to smoke or are of a nervous disposition or object to the display of style and cool which they can't manage.

I'll bet my last quid that a company of 45 smokers will traduce a company of 45 non-smokers, all other things being equal, at any economic activity requiring more that simple mechanical manipulations of the Noddy shop type.

I hate stinky exhaust and factories too.

It has nothing to do with productivity. It has to do with the dysfunctional system of US Healthcare. My brother is part of an insurance program that basically rewards or punishes his company for the health of his employees. Every year the employees have a physical exam that rates their health, if they seem healthy his rates don't go up. Therefore, hiring people who cannot pass a physical stress test is not in his interest. Does this effect who he hires? - you betcha. He can't come out and say "sorry you smoke" or "sorry you're too fat", but that is what happens. The Obama bill may change this, but no one really knows yet what it will effect and on what scale.

The point was Bella that the argument for banning smoking applies equally to car exhausts and factory emissions both of which non-smokers contribute to. It is likely that non-smokers have bigger cars and consume factory goods more than smokers do. It doesn't matter what individuals dislike unless they band together using hypocritical arguments.

Non-smokers pay less taxes here, considerably, but cost the health services a lot more money than smokers do because they live long, doddering and hypochondriacal lives.

Such a system GW must mean that the smokers concentrate in other work places. From an economic point of view it makes no sense unless the products and services of the respective situations are of equal value to the consumers of them.

It is of interest what line of business your two examples are in.

It certainly seems like discrimination as smoking is not illegal. Not yet anyway. It is well known that nicotine stimulates the brain and especially its creative functions. Taking a long term view it is possible to argue that the rise and rise of the indignant busybody is the main factor in limiting the economic power of a society. Europe began its rapid economic and military growth when tobacco came into use. It might be a coincidence but it might not.

An American general in WWI ran out of tobacco and ammunition. His urgent memo asked for priority on the tobacco. It's on the record.

Thank you Mame for your answer. My wife and I will soon be on a 3 week holiday to Canada and Alaska and we have gotten used to a smoke free environment as it has been in force in Australia for a few years now. Apologies in the delay of replying but my computer has been in for a spruce -up.

And why is it "likely that non smokers have bigger cars and consume factory goods more than smokers do"? That is just a silly statement.

If you want a reasonably rational statment, you could say non smokers are probably more likely to be earth conscious due to their health consciousness.

It don't get any simpler.

I had to laugh...

I was talking about their scruples at polluting the atmosphere of those who don't drive. They are the ones making the emotional pleas and when it comes to what they do they forget it. It's nearly $75 a week here to buy a pack a day. Which is $4,000 a year. Nearly all tax. On that alone my statement that it is "likely" is okay by me. I'll accept arguments about it but not that it's "silly".

Non-smokers would have more money to spend on other things and advertising is not banned on those other things so Media would be anti-smoking for financial reasons and as they were bang at it when they could advertise tobacco it's a bit of a stretch for them now to claim they are in the business of "saving lives". Media was the main opponent of the ban on tobacco advertising as Peter Taylor's book Smoke Ring makes clear.

The medical profession has a great deal to gain from keeping people alive into the 80s. So the non-smoker has Media and the medical profession in the coalition.

All the arguments of that coalition logically demand the banning of tobacco. Why does the coalition not get on with that? They have a clear majority.