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When smoking is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in France and will prematurely kill one in two regular smokers, it is possible to question the merits of respecting the freedom to smoke, especially in a place of care such as the hospital, the first place to treat the damages to health and the complications caused by smoking.After the development of the “tobacco-free hospital” project and the “tobacco-free place of health” project, and having facilitated nicotine substitution with the objective to reduce or cease tobacco consumption, the persistence or opposition of some hospitalized smokers and smoking hospital staff make one wonder what underlies these practices and positionings beyond the behavior being addictive.