The following is a list of smoking bans in the United States. For smoking bans and restrictions outside the United States, see the worldwide list of smoking bans.
The United States Congress has not attempted to enact any nationwide federal smoking ban. Therefore, smoking bans in the United States are entirely a product of state and local criminal and occupational safety and health laws.
In 1995, California was the first state to enact a statewide smoking ban; throughout the early to mid 2000s, especially between 2004 and 2007, an increasing number of states enacted a statewide smoking ban of some kind. The most recent smoking ban, as of 2012, is North Dakota's statewide smoking ban, which was ratified by voters on November 6, 2012.
As further detailed in this list, smoking laws vary widely throughout the United States. Some places in the United States do not generally regulate smoking at all, some ban smoking in certain areas and not others, and some ban smoking nearly everywhere, even in outdoor areas (no state bans smoking in all public outdoor areas, but some local jurisdictions do). As of October 5, 2012, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, 81.3% of the U.S. population lives under a ban on smoking in "workplaces, and/or restaurants, and/or bars, by either a state, commonwealth, or local law,", though only 48.7% live under a ban covering all workplaces and restaurants and bars. A smoking ban (either state or local) has been enacted covering all bars and restaurants in each of the 60 most populated cities in the United States except these 16: Arlington, Texas, Atlanta, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Memphis, Miami, Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tampa, Tulsa, and Virginia Beach.
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“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1954)
“Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This world is half the devil’s and my own,
Daft with the drug that’s smoking in a girl....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The veto is a President’s Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a check against irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)