"No smoking, please" vs "Feel free to smoke"

It started with Anna complaining about a meeting she had with some officials from a state-owned power company. All the officials were smoking -- in a centrally air-conditioned room. She was irritated.

Then we discussed about smoking in general. It seems that everybody knows that smoking may endanger his/her health. But people keep smoking. Anna was bothered to see some sick people in wheelchairs were sunbathing in hospital frontyard, smoking. She also didn't understand why many street beggars (even those with legs amputed) smoke. "They barely have money. But they smoke, why?", "Why don't they use the only money they have for food -- healthier than smoke?".

I told Anna, we had to be careful in this issue. Smoking is a form of consumption. Some people like to do it; just like I enjoy chewing bubble gum. Or like anybody sipping coke, eating candy, et cetera. But why don't we complain when we see somebody chews bubble gum or drinks coke? While we get irritated by people who smoke? As long as they use their own money, it's their right to spend it on whatever they want. Including to buy cigarrette. As for the beggar, we are free to give him money or refuse to do that. But once we give the money, we can't take it back just because he uses it to buy cigarette.

Anna was still unconvinced. And I knew it. She must be thinking about what economists call "externality problem". When somebody smokes, some other people have to deal with the smoke, too. Without proper compensation, we say, the affected parties bear a cost due to somebody else's smoking. This is a situation where the non-smokers have the right to hate and even complain the smokers. ("You should have told those officials you had meeting with; you objected them smoking"). But note: we "hate" smokers because the smoke disturbs us (and is harmful to our health), not because smoking is harmful to the smoker himself. We can complain because the smoke gets in our eyes (and lungs), but we can't complain if people spend their money to smoke. (The way we can complain when somebody spils coke on us, or somebody throws bubble gum on the street). You see the difference?

But, how to ask a "proper compensation"? Is it that we can't ask the smoker next to us to pay us some compensation? That's true. Here's a room for a policy called "sumptuary tax" -- charge imposed on to discourage consumption because it might create negative externality to other people. How? Make smoking less attractive, by imposing higher tax/excise. That would result in higher price of cigarette. How is the money collected be used for "compensating" the non-smokers? By providing (closed) smoking booths in public place etc. Of course this is no easy, as many smokers don't care with such facility; they smoke wherever they want, including in public places -- looking for designated place is troublesome. Well, those guys deserve a slap. Things are more complicated because many non-smokers don't know that they have the right to complain... More so, the smokers don't understand why they are complained.