Quite the contrary, a ban on smoking in public places protects individual rights. It protects the right of workers and the public not to be exposed to dangerous carcinogens. Do you have the right to walk into a privately owned public establishment, sit down, take out a hammer and start driving nails into the limbs of the person sitting next to you? Is that an expressionn of your individual rights too? Just as with smoking, it's a completely unjustifiable assault on innocent bystanders.

Smokers in Massachusetts still have the right to light up their cancer sticks. In private clubs, bars, and residences though, not public ones.