The wording of the fourth paragraph comes off as rather biased: "Southern and western states are lagging in implementing smoking bans."
Topic on Comments:All US states could have smoke-free laws by 2020
As far as i can tell this is a very biased article. The writer is clearly in favor of anti-smoking laws.
>implying that's a bad thing
Thats good. People need to use common sense.
The US is in favor of anti-smoking laws because of the high health care costs associated with smoking. They are trying like heck to lower the percentage of the budget the US spends on health care.