The town of Brookline, Massachusetts was probably best known for being the birthplace of US president John F Kennedy and for having what American landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing called “quite an Arcadian air of rural freedom and enjoyment” Three years ago, the authorities in this bucolic town decided that its “Arcadian Air” would henceforth be unsullied by smoking. With the stroke of a pen, the town had gone from New England idyll to pioneering national health champion. Critics of