Smoking Police at Fiji Airport, but Sydney is all good

My flight from LAX got delayed for about 4 hours, but luckily they called ahead and delayed the connection flight in Fiji. Then again, maybe it wasn't so much luck, due to the fact that the Boeing 747 that we were flying on from LAX had 550 passengers on it, and if they didn't hold the connection plane, it would have left Fiji completely empty. I ended up passing the time chatting with a Swedish girl at LAX who was headed to Fiji to couchsurf for a few weeks before heading to South America. I ended up sleeping quite a bit on the 12 hour flight from LAX to Fiji, and then even slept a bit on the 5 hour flight from Fiji to LAX.

The worst part about Fiji was that they didn't have a smoking section unless you left customs, even though most of the terminals were outdoor terminals. Then then--to boot--they send everyone back through a security screening, even though everyone had just had one at LAX, and at that point they stole my lighter. 

"Why do you have this?" asked the heavy set security screener. She had a perfectly rounded afro, and acted as though i was smuggling a bomb.

"because I smoke," I said back.

"but how did you get it here."

I pointed at the massive plane that I had just exited and said "I flew here on that, and it was in my pocket."

"but how did you get it through security?"

"I've always been allowed to fly with lighters and they let me at LAX."

She glared at me as if i had just said something pretentious and said "well, this is Fiji, not LAX, and we have to take this from you."

At that point it didn't much matter whether I had a lighter or not, because there wasn't anywhere to smoke anyway, and every employee at the Fiji airport seemed like they were just getting paid to make sure people didn't smoke. 

When I arrived at Sydney Airport, the line for customs took roughly and hour, and as soon as I walked outside, there was a barrage of people smoking right in front of the exit doors. No throwback leper island, no dirty looks, just people and their cigarettes, so I did the only thing I knew, and asked one of them for a lighter.