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I've always thought that the government shouldn't prevent you from doing anything that doesn't harm some unwilling victim, but that's it. If you want to do something that harms only you, that's your business. That's kind of how alcohol is treated. Drinking it's fine, but getting drunk and doing something stupid and dangerous to other people is illegal.
That does make smoking in public a trickier issue, since your secondhand smoke is bad for other people who aren't willingly taking it in, so I understand the push for smoking bans in public places. I guess the flip side of that is, if people don't want to be around smoke, they can always patronize businesses that don't allow it.
The other issue I can see is for people who live in a place where the government provides health care. People smoking may have some impact on the amount of taxes you pay, so you'd have an interest in stopping it since it might cause you some financial harm. I have no clue how much or how little of an impact that would have, and I'm sure it varies from place to place. However, in that case, I think the appropriate way to handle that is to study how much of an increase in expense is caused by smokers and tax cigarettes accordingly, which makes the smoker pay for their choice to smoke rather than everyone else.