Why even 'wowsers' argue about smoke bans

The state government's proposed raft of smoking restrictions is generating debate, even among anti-smoking campaigners. The ethical basis for restricting others' smoking rests on the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, who famously wrote: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others … Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.''
There is now a large body of evidence dating from the early 1970s that being exposed to others' tobacco smoke can cause serious disease. But this evidence is nearly all about chronic exposure over many years, experienced by the families of smokers and by workers such as airline crew and bar staff who got concentrated lungfuls of it every day. Their occupational health rights to a safe workplace were shredded by neo-Dickensian assumptions that they should just have to put up with it.
Children are particularly vulnerable, with the earliest studies showing increased respiratory problems in infants living in smoky homes. Acute exposure to cigarette smoke produces measurable but temporary bodily changes, and in some people with diseases such as cystic fibrosis, even short exposures can be very distressing and dangerous.