Because the growing, manufacturing, distributing and/or possessing tobacco products is not a health risk. Smoking is. And smoking in the presence of others threatens their health. Fort Worth's ban on smoking in public places is a reasonable measure to protect the health of the public, without overreaching and forbidding practices in private that affect only the persons who willingly choose to indulge. It's a long-established principle that your right to swing your fist in the air stops at the end of my nose. That doesn't justify laws requiring you to keep your hands in your pockets at all times.
Surely, Mike Hashimoto understands this logic. Why would he even ask the question he does? Perhaps to implicitly suggest that banning smoking in public places is somehow logically and morally equivalent to banning smoking in private? Or maybe that it's at least a slippery slope from the former to the latter? Mr Hashimoto must know the argument is flawed, the logic faulty, but what the heck, if he can get people to believe it, it just might slow down public health regulations, which, I gather, is the outcome his innocent-sounding question is probably intended to promote.
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