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How can the World Health Organization possibly hope to win a worldwide anti-smoking battle?

I just read this news story about a new, worldwide anti-smoking campaign ready to be launched by the World Health Organization (WHO). The campaign, which will be based on a big study funded in part by the Bloomberg Philanthropies, will attempt to cut tobacco use in the world's poorest nations. According to the news story, something like a billion people will die worldwide in this century from tobacco related illnesses.

I applaud their plans and wish them the best, but I doubt the best efforts WHO may mount will succeed: Nicotine is too addictive and the tobacco companies (as well as many of the world's governments) have too much of a financial stake in promoting that addiction.

Besides that, people are simply stupid when it comes to smoking and smoking related issues.

Right here in America, many campaigns to stop public smoking have faltered on that absolutely lame, idiotic idea of "smokers' rights." I would personally like to be able to erase that term from the language and ban all smoking in public, certainly in anything resembling a workspace or a restaurant.

Smokers rights? What right does anyone have to inflict tobacco products, byproducts, and smoke on me or anyone else? What right does anyone have to suck the stuff in themselves?

Admittedly, a major step would be finding a way to outlaw tobacco and everything related to it. But, of course, that'll never happen. So there is the "right" to purchase tobacco as a legal substance.

But I don't see any laws or anything in the Constitution which gives anyone the "right" to share (?) their nicotine in any form in a way that I have to take part in it.

When you live in a world where otherwise intelligent people insist they can't or shouldn't ban public poison (i.e., tobacco smoke) because it might offend someone or cut down on their customers -- well, good luck, WHO, you've got quite a battle ahead of you.
[tags]World Health Organization, Bloomberg, anti-tobacco campaigns, anti-smoking campaigns, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]