Brazil's leader lights up, doesn't care if smoke gets in your eyes

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2008

BRASILIA (AFP) — Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday gave a rare defense of smokers' rights, arguing that people should be allowed to smoke where they choose, local newspapers reported.

"Really, I am defending the idea that people be allowed to smoke anywhere they choose," Lula told the daily Agora.

And "the only people who smoke are those who are hooked," Lula said, when asked about draft legislation seeking to ban smoking in enclosed places.

He may not be entirely impartial in his views.

The president was smoking a small cigar during the interview, the reporter said.

In recent years Brazil's government has tightened restrictions on smoking. Packs of cigarettes now carry photos of smokers who are deathly ill.

The...