laws against smoking in public places is not worldwide. i live in Venezuela and a law of that matter was just recently aproved, like a couple of years ago, but that is not the worst, no one respect that law, and the government does not do anything either to make it work, everyone smoke wherever whenever they want, and thats why i have grown to hate people who smokes, not just because i am a pasive smoker, but because i am asthmatic as well. but not just them, the government as well of course for not doing absolutely nothing. people that smokes just dont care at all about others while they smoke, if they dont care about their health why should they anyway. so why should i care about their personal choice when they dont care about people like me with a health issue. i also support personal choice, but every choice comes with a collateral damage. and in other countries is worst, there is no real legislation against this kind of problem. you can find videos on the internet of children smoking, kids of like 10 years old. even with this kind of laws. cigarettes shouldnt exist really. sorry if i am being to radical lol. my brother smokes and i just hate him when he do it hahaha. 

21 is still too young. Smoking and the voting age should be both increased to 25. People under 25 are often too immature or do not care enough to vote. By increasing smoking age to 25 protects the youth from taking up an addictive habit that destroys their health, increases cost to Health Budgets and only economically benefits Big Tobacco and the government in Tobacco taxes.

Sure, the mileage varies from country to country. My point was that said policy exists (relatively recent in my country too), and I consider it to be enough to deal with the situation, from the judicial point of view. Now, if that kind of law can't be enforced for some reason, then certainly a ban wouldn't be possible either, rendering this discussion moot.

Why should you care about their personal rights ? Well, to me, it's a matter of principle. If you understand the importance of individual rights, then you can understand why it's important to defend them for everyone, regardless of how you feel about the choices themselves. Protecting the rights of others is by extension protecting your own as well. And if there ever comes a day when someone tries to ban something you like, you'll be glad to have as much people as you can on your side as possible. Besides this, I think you're being unfair when you generalize all smokers like that... There's always people who care, and people who don't, and I'm sure most of the time just letting someone know about your condition would earn you some sympathy, depending on the situation of course. 

Regarding your comment about children, I don't think that's a valid excuse to ban something to everyone. Some children, in one way or another, are always going to get their hands on things they shouldn't, for various reasons... If that were enough excuse to ban something, then we would've to ban pretty much anything we don't want children to get, like alcohol, porn, guns, knives, adult media, etc... The only thing you can do is educate, restrict access to children in specific (and reasonable) ways, and implement safety precautions. You just can't control everything and everyone... Nor you should try, from my point of view...

I'm sorry to hear about your asthma and struggles with smokers though, and for the record, I actually had some respiratory issues myself when I was younger for years (bronchitis, I think...), to the point of using an inhaler many times and learning breathing exercises through the diaphragm (never got used to it though...). I know what is like to have a respiratory "crisis", even if I never got to the point of being asthmatic, thankfully. These issues somehow disappeared over the years while I grew up, and I think my years of swimming, recommended to me by doctors partially for this, were in part responsible. To those of you who haven't tried it, I would recommend it, previously discussed with your doctor of course.

i used to swimm also!. yeah! is good for repiratory problems xd. well i guess you are right. but smoking needs to have its restrictions. and yes, you are right, all we get to do is to educate the younger ones, i know we cannot stop things like these to fall in the hands of children. so we get to educate, i think is something of a cultural matter as well i guess. but hey i am all for individual rights as well. its just that you know, in the end there will always be some conflicts of interest like these ones. 

True. I have to work 15 minutes longer every day because of smokers.

If you seriously knew what smoking did to yourself and the people around you, you wouldn't do it.

I'm all for taking strict measures to decrease smoking rates. Australia has some pretty strict laws with regards to smoking in public and taxes mean that a pack of cigarettes runs something like 15 dollars.

I don't however agree with this. You can be tried and committed as an adult, you can fight /die for your country in war, you can vote but you aren't allowed to smoke and drink until 21? Either you are an adult and are supposed to be responsible for your own actions or you're not.

Again, I'm fine with taking any number of measures to strongly discourage/restrict this behaviour, particularly when and where it can affect other people but randomly increasing the smoking age is not a solution. Furthermore you are opening the door for the government to remove additional rights or place additional arbitrary restrictions on any behaviour they want to discourage.

I agree they should just standardize everything at one age.  

That said... fun fact.  Their isn't any legal age with which to buy M rated games or Films.

It's argueably whether any such law could pass due to the US protections against free speech.

The rating systems in play are actually run by the industries themselves to self regulate to avoid from preventing congress from trying to pass those laws/good will to keep the number of lobbysts down.

As a proud hater of all nicotine-products i applaud this as a very good start, but more has to be done. It needs to be eradicated.

I think they should much rather make marijuana illegal. Smoking for health reason lol.

Such hypocrism really destroys morals in my opinion.