Havana ? Once a smoker’s paradise, Cuba is banning smoking in stores, theaters, meeting halls and other public places starting today.

And longtime smokers in this island nation, one of the world’s tobacco capitals, are fuming about the new rules.

“They can’t take this away from me. I’ll kill them,” said Graciela Gonzalez, 80, clutching a fat stogie. “This is my life.”

Smoking is widely accepted in Cuba, where at least a third of the population lights up. With the new restrictions, Cuban officials hope to change people’s thoughts about smoking and save lives.

But it’s an uphill fight in a country that sells cigarettes for as little as 8 cents a pack, cheaper than anywhere else in the world.

Cuban President Fidel Castro was a walking advertisement for tobacco, his nation’s third largest export, until he abruptly gave up cigars in 1985.

In recent years, Cuban health officials have become increasingly concerned about smoking, which is linked to thousands of deaths per year on the island.

The Cuban government unwittingly hooked much of the populace decades ago when it began including cigarettes in the monthly ration of foodstuffs it sells at subsidized rates.

The rations program allowed adults to buy packs of unfiltered smokes for just two Cuban pesos — or less than eight cents.

Hoping to reduce the number of new smokers without enraging those who already were addicted, officials a few years ago said that only people born before 1955 qualified for the cut-rate cigarettes.

The new rules will prohibit smoking “in all enclosed or air-conditioned locales open to the public,” including taxis, trains, buses, theaters, meeting halls and other public places.

Restaurants and bars are not specifically singled out in the regulations, and authorities haven’t made clear how they’ll be affected. Nor have they said how they’ll enforce the ban at popular tourist haunts.

“I dread trying to make this thing work,” said a security chief at La Bodeguita del Medio, a restaurant/bar and former Ernest Hemingway watering hole in Old Havana. “Someone’s going to have to tell people not to smoke. It’s not going to be me. I’ll delegate that to someone else.”

The crackdown also prohibits cigarette sales to children younger than 16 and within 100 yards of schools.

Omar Sandoval, 58, a Havana smoker who makes a living posing for pictures while chomping on a cigar, said the rules make sense.

“Smoking is no good for human beings,” he said.