Dave, you really cannot reason with these smokers' rights fanatics. Some of them are my friends (not Jim), and all it seems to do is get a lot of people steamed up, and feelings hurt. Nothing ever seems to be resolved, and everyone goes back to their separate corners and sulks, until the subject is brought up again a few months later, and old wounds are reopened.
Even those of them who insist that they do not smoke around people who are bothered by smoke--and I believe them because aside from this one flaw they are otherwise delightful (not Jim)--seem either in total denial about the damage smoking does, or are so afraid their individual liberties are going to be taken away that it is hopeless to argue with them. They all either smoke, or have libertarian philosophies on the issue, and are not going to listen to reason.
Many of us have tried using rational arguments, and the results of studies as well, to no avail. This argument at SI is almost as polarizing as the ongoing one about religion and homosexuality on these threads.
I did quickly find some urls on the subject. The last one is the most interesting, because it refutes in a way Holly's argument about most waitresses being smokers, by taking groups of nurses who did, or did not, smoke and seeing what the damage is from second hand smoke in the workplace. This is a recent and very well respected study, by the way.
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