This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 14, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown.

The French have executed a far-reaching smoke. 18th, 2008, I'm Caleb Brown.

The French have executed a far-reaching smoking ban, but are the French serious about it?

The managing editor of Cato's Regulation magazine, Tom Fiery, considers the evidence.

Essentially what has France done.

Much like many cities and even states here in what has

passed a ban on smoking in public bars and restaurants.

There are some exceptions to this.

One is you are allowed to smoke outside on a covered patio

that there's a tremendous amount of regulations saying exactly what is

acceptable even in that situation. Another is you can have smoking inside if it's a

basically a special room with its own ventilation but again there's a there's a pile

of regulations that one has to obey to take advantage of that exception.

Basically, like I said, they're doing what we're doing here in the United States.

They're basically banning any sort of indoor smoking even in bars and restaurants.

When you think of France, you think of French people smoking,

baguets, in cafes, in bars, and that seems to be like an ingrained part of French culture.

It is part of the lifestyle and that's kind of the irony of this.

Of course when you also think of France what you think of is a fairly socialized economy including a

socialized health care. So maybe you know as I think about this there is a little bit

of an argument for the French decision to do this, which is unlike here in the United States, if I choose to smoke in France and I develop some sort of a smoking-related illness, I truly am imposing a cost on the rest of society.

And that really raises an important question for us here in the United States as we talk more and more about

...