Sounds like you just aren’t going far enough back to find the true monsters

Many people are not freedom absolutists. They are ok with giving up some small freedoms if it means a better society. Smoking, besides being dangerously addictive, also negatively affects lots of people around you, and it negatively affects the health of children who grow up with smoker parents.

I think ideally it would not be banned outright, just severely limited (no smoking in public except very specific, closed off spaces. No smoking in an environment that children inhabit, etc) but people will just do it anyway, especially because of how addictive it is. So I can definitely understand the motive to just ban it for future generations who are not addicted yet.