Smoking... Is it relevant to both the economy and healthcare?

I figured it would be about time to say something about smoking in a ambulatory health care center. I understand peoples concerns about the impression you beset upon others, yet i am forced to wonder at why a person who works there must hide by a fence in order to draw in the little comfort they get to be able to mentally drag themselves back inside the war zone that awaits them. Throughout the past the tobacco industry had tried to hide the harmful effects that their product did to the people that smoked it. They researched for years and poored several millions of dollars to find different ways to manipulate the truth and mask the fact that their product killed. However now informed of this, 20 percent of americans continue to smoke. They do not care about the side effects that the product may induce. "According to Partnership for Prevention and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, smoking-related illness results in $100 billion in health care costs each year". What does this mean? In a sense the tobacco industry helps the economy thrive. The constant existence of more and more sick / ill people that stroll into the health-care community causes billions of dollars to be pumped into the economy.

Why is it that the state of tennessee invoked a smoking law banning the act from public restraunts and facilities then? This is largely due to the state protecting the small business owners. On an average a smoker will miss upwards to 7 more days of work then a person that refrains from the act. This is why it's becoming more and more common for small buisness owners and small healthcare practices to force their employees to not smoke on their property by creating no-smoking policies.

Many such employers offer assistance and incentives for employees that are hooked on the drug and wish to stop polluting their system. Some employers will send their employees to rehab in order to get them off a drug that may cause a harmful work environment , if of course they were allowed the use of the drug prior to the policies being put into action.

Yet, we have constant arguments on should a work force or state government be able to intrude on people's personal liberties. To this i say " Let the state and government intrude on what is considered their domain... yet the moment they intrude inside the household of the common american citizen then they will and should be proclaimed to be doing nothing less then commiting an act of terror.