The cigarette butts are a serious problem though. Just a few butts can poison ground water since even tiny amounts of nicotine are highly poisonous. Just eating one single butt can kill a dog. Let's not forget why the tabac plant produces nicotine in the first place. It's a natural insecticide and it's very potent. So I still think it's less about control for controls sake and more because it's definitely a serious problem that the vast majority of smokers are inconsiderate, littering AHs. Sorry to say that. But wherever you let people smoke it only takes a day and the place is trashed with ashes and cigarette butts. That's a fact. You see it everywhere except in the cities that put people in prison for a day if they get caught littering cigarette butts.

I haven't thrown a cigarette anywhere it's not supposed to be thrown in ... literally decades. One, I lost during a storm, it just ... was blown out of my hand and I was physically unable to fly, due to being a smoker I guess, and therefore didn't retrieve it. If there's a vast majority in smokers who are inconsiderate AHs, then, sadly, they will not stop being AHs when they stop smoking. They also very likely already were inconsiderate AHs before they started smoking. It's more a problem of being an inconsiderate AH that, in case these people also are smoking, makes use of smoke related ressources to increase there AH'ery. Smoking does not make you a bad person. Thinking that smoking makes one a bad person tells a lot more about the judgemental person than it does about the judged upon people. AHs aren't more or less prevalent in smokers than in nonsmokers. And, yes, some of us are considerate. Don't litter with cigs, don't litter anyway. I think that those non-litterers of us have every right to demand not being judged by the littering of other people, because that's just arbitrary and wrong - and literally fulfills the definition of being inconsiderate ... in other words, who calls me an AH for things other people do is at the very least a worse AH than I am, and honestly, I don't consider myself one. If I had a reason to, I'd change that reason ... nobody wants to be an AH, or does anybody?

I don't think it's a matter of right or wrong. Smokers pose a health risk, non smokers don't.

Smoker CAN pose a health risk. We CAN also avoid doing that. But every time, it, once again, is "all uf you", always from people who do for sure NOT know ALL smokers, I feel less obligated to do so and just mind my own business. Smoking on sidewalks while walking somewhere doesn't make me feel evil.

I honestly don't care if you feel evil or not. And it doesn't change my statement, as much as you want to present it as a possibility. I don't pose a health risk. At all. You can't say the same. And, if as you said, feel less obligated to avoid risks because you feel attacked when someone points out the obvious, you're not really considerate. Laws against smokers where passed PRECISELY because of your lack of consideration as a collective that non smokers suffered for decades.

There's a bit too much unfounded assumery on your part here. I don't pose a health risk to ANY animal, ANY child or ANY not consenting adult. The only thing aybody ever needs to do to make me not smoke in an enclosed area where I have every right to do so - think my car, my flat, practically nowhere else - is asking me not to smoke without being impolite. I don't think that is asked too much. Usually, I smoke outside the car before taking off and offer to not smoke when nonsmokers are aboard anyway. As for littering, I have a small metal box in my daily backpack that, in case there is no ashtray available, I use as ashtray. I think everyone should do something along those, precisely to not bother anybody else. But, I am not responsible for inconsiderate smokers. I don't want to be treated as if I was. If the extremists among nonsmokers feel the desire to do so, I don't see why I should answer unfounded unkindness with kindness on my part. I opt to reflect back on people for their assumptions just as much as they opt to assume regardless of reality. I can't tell you which kind you're of, but I can tell you the most obnoxious one. I went to a party with my sister, and I went there by car. A Mini, a real small cavity for four passengers, then (a real Mini, not a BMW-Mini - those may be fine or not, that's besides here). I hadn't planned to go, and if I went, I wouldn't have planned to go by car. A couple, early twenties then (I was late twenties, so it's some years ago already), consisting of a silent guy who always agreed with his girlfriend, seemingly automatic (he seemed tired ... she seemed exhausting) and his loud girlfriend who, it seemed, was unable to not talk longer than a few seconds. She got to know I was there by car and didn't have any passengers yet, so she approached me and told me that I was to take them both home, I was to obey every rule and law regarding traffic (that it already required from everybody who drives a motorized vehicle anyway, but she needed to point it out) and that, of course, I was not to smoke in my own car as long as they were aboard. I'd have happily done every bit of that - had she asked instead of yelling orders at a guy she never saw before, and, lucky for me, never saw again. I took them to the next subway station, they were still in service, as it was a weekend, and also, when we reached the subway station, my cigarette was finished. Politeness isn't a oneway, and it isn't less required or more required depending on smoking or not. And, however often it needs to be said or written - thoughtless inconsiderate AHs are the problem, it's just that those of these who smoke have more effective means to annoy other people, while inconsiderate AHs who don't smoke need to resort to different means. Like blanket accusations and such. I don't want to accuse you of that, but, still, I don't see why being polite towards people who make it their mission to purposefully NOT see the individual they're interacting with, but a group they assume a lot of, of which nothing needs to be true nor false. And, a sidewalk ... that's outside, not staying in one spot. The worst THAT can cause on its own is an undesired sensation of a smell they don't like. But, then, there's those who think that every time, everywhere, always any smoker is wrong and any nonsmoker is right, and that is wrong on a level that vastly exceeds smoking vs nonsmoking.

+ smokefree extra-length - as the cat is sleeping on my printer, next to me, I'll go outside to smoke. She's a nonsmoker, and I owe to her to take care of her, and to prevent any preventable damage from her.

The statistic would be clearly nonsense if we were all reading it like you are. But you’re reading it wrong. 880,000 is nowhere near 1 billion.