Michael Siegel is a professor of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health.

He's considered one of the more thoughtful tobacco control campaigners to the extent that, a few years ago, people who should know better were hanging on his every word, reading and analysing his blog as if it was gospel.

It made me feel a bit nauseous, to be honest.

Anyway, via Juliette Tworsey, I've now discovered that Siegel appears to believe a ban on smoking in public housing is "a natural step to continue to spread the smoke-free protections that started with workplaces and then spread to restaurants and bars".

You can find the full quote here. According to the report, Siegel "praised" the proposal.

Then again, I'm sure if you speak to most tobacco control campaigners they would agree with him. Even if they thought it was a step too far they certainly wouldn't lift a finger to stop it happening.

That's why I have so little time for anti-smoking activists. Their default position is not to educate but to regulate, legislate and prohibit. Choice and personal responsibility are anathemas to them.

Amusingly, the hero worship that Dr Siegel experienced a few years ago is now targeted at every public health campaigner who advocates e-cigarettes.

While it may be great sport to watch the tobacco control industry divide on the subject of vaping, don't be fooled into thinking that public health advocates of e-cigs are now in the liberal pro-choice camp. They're not.

The choice they are offering is not to smoke or vape. It's to quit or vape. E-cigarettes are a means to an end.

Public health advocacy of vaping is just another tool in the long-running war on smokers. Indeed the enthusiasm with which some public health campaigners have embraced e-cigarettes borders on zealotry.

Whether they are with you or against you there's a fanatical glint in many a tobacco controller's eye that should make any normal person wince.

My guess is that many of the people currently advocating e-cigs as a healthier alternative to combustible cigarettes will turn eventually against all non-pharma nicotine devices.

They say you should never work with children or animals. I feel the same way about public health campaigners. Sooner or later it's going to end in tears.