First, the question doesn't define a "public" place. Second, the debate has become a strident contest of wills rather than a "real" issue. And third, are we permitted to do things that a majority doesn't approve of? I believe our Constitution has something to say about that.
So what's public? A Metro bus is "public" but it's enclosed and I think it's reasonable to restrict smoking. A public building (e.g., a courthouse) is also enclosed and qualifies for the same preference. Almost any other property or facility is privately owned and subject only to the smoking preferences set by the owners.
Any open space is public; the beaches, the sidewalks, the streets, the forests, the swamps, the deserts and the mountains. A municipal or state park is public and wide open to the air. Do we really believe that smokers are more dangerous to others than emissions from our cars and factories?
Where I think the debate loses focus is the rather shrill demand by non-smokers that no one should smoke. I'm a smoker and I like it. I've stopped smoking for a couple of years five times. I've started smoking, let's see, I guess that makes it six times. I'm a tidy smoker. I don't blow smoke into other's faces, I don't smoke inside my home or my car (because even I object to the smell of stale smoke), I clean my ashtrays and don't throw butts on the ground.
Shouldn't we have choice regardless of whether most people think we're crazy? When I say this isn't a "real" issue, I put it in the context of it having no bearing on the national common weal. The health issue is a scam; a classic example of brilliant lawyering over common sense . . . not unlike the woman who got $2.5 million from McDonald's for holding a cup of scalding coffee between her thighs. Those who refer to the CDC or NIH or other studies that "prove" the dangers of smoking are missing the point that millions of Americans like to smoke and will do so whether it's legal or not and regardless of whether one might die five years sooner. It's a matter of choice.
I don't think there's a smoker out there who believes (or ever did) that lighting up is a paean for immortality. In the 1960s, almost 63% of Americans smoked. The advance of medical research that "indicated" smoking wasn't a great idea and had unhealthful consequences wasn't a surprise to smokers. Smokers reviewed the evidence and made choices about their preferences versus their risks.
Why some of us choose to smoke is nobody's business as long as we're polite about it. I sympathize with those who consider it a healthcare issue and refer them to the preponderance of evidence that in every other industrialized nation with universal healthcare, the incidence of heart disease or cancer that can be attributed to smoking is a fraction of what we're told in America. What do these other nations know that we don't? Is all their data flawed? Or are we inflating the data to support a national hysteria against smoking? Not to belabor the point, but we went to war and attacked Iraq on "evidence" of WMDs while the rest of the world told us it was grossly unreliable information.
The smoking issue is a politician's gift. What lazy politician can lose advocating no smoking legislation? It's an easy platform absolutely irrelevant to important issues of job creation, immigration, taxes, war, and presidential foolishness. The billions awarded in recent years to states and families of smokers have done nothing but made attorneys rich.
There will always be many of us who feel we have a lock on what is right for some of us. Nevertheless, the "opinion" of the majority carries no legislative weight against the rights of a minority. Should we shut down a monster American industry with millions of jobs at stake in order to restrict a few of us from our chosen vices? Reflect for a moment on the fact that while about 25% of Americans still smoke, almost 45% fall into the "new" medical and legal controversy of being dangerously overweight.
I suggest that folks who remain concerned about the smoking issue transfer their energy to prohibiting french fries and pizza.