Smoking bans spreading, but some states still love smokers

(CBS/AP) For smokers who like to light up in bars and restaurants and on the job, the clock is ticking. By 2020, the CDC predicted Thursday, every state in the nation may ban indoor smoking in public places.

And that has smokers' rights activists fuming.

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Gary Nolan, director of the pro-smoking rights organization Smoker's Club, said he wouldn't be surprised if the prediction came true. Public health officials and others have been putting tremendous pressure on bars and businesses to bar smoking, he added.

"It wouldn't surprise me if they prevailed," he said. "It's just a little bit more liberty slipping away at the hands of big government."

But Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, is bullish about the spread of smoking bans.

"It is by no means a foregone conclusion that we'll get there by 2020," he said. But the success of the smoking ban movement has been astounding, and seems to be accelerating, he added. "I'm relatively bullish we'll at least get close to that number."

In 2000, no states had comprehensive indoor smoking bans. In 2010, 26 states did.

Some other states have less restrictive laws, like requiring smoking areas with separate ventilation.

Only seven states have no indoor smoking restrictions, although some of their cities do: Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Tobacco smoke causes lung cancer, heart disease and other often-deadly maladies, and smoking has been called one of the nation's leading causes of death.

So the choice for health policy makers seems to be a clear one: liberty or death.