Moral crusade
As OP says, it's some kind of temperance movement kind of thing. To be honest, if tobacco had never been discovered, perhaps everyone would have been better off. But, it has been discovered, plenty of people enjoy and/or are addicted to it. I'm a libertarian, in my view if they aren't harming anyone else (by blowing smoke right in their face) then it's none of my business to tell them what to do. But others just want to be able to tell everyone else what to do, and if they can't do it directly, they seem satisfied by just increasing restrictions year-after-year to get what they want.
In the US, the anti-smoking movement began with attempts to just say they wanted to stop people smoking. This was pretty unsuccessful; the number of smokers dropped as people became aware of the health risks, but nowhere near zero. It moved on to claiming the goal was to reduce second hand smoke, but the goal really has been a long-term goal of banning all smoking. So, first the reasonable moves were made of making sure airflow was good enough that non-smoking areas didn't just get big ol' clouds of smoke from the smoking areas, and that people didn't smoke right next to the entrance/exit. Fair enough. It didn't take long for this to expand to "no smoking at all indoors" and extensive outdoor areas where smoking is banned, still with the claim it's due to second-hand smoke when in these conditions, it's actually not.
If you see the ban on snus, it shows an extension of this -- it's not smoked (no second-hand smoke); unlike chewing tobacco, no spitting. And due to how it's processed, it has much lower carcinogen levels than other smoked or chewed tobaccos. But, it's banned in most of the EU, and there are pushes to ban it elsewhere.
Vaping, I think restrictions on it make it clear what the real motives of these people are.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
