The restaurant where I worked in the '80s had three tables in Non-Smoking, a few feet from Smoking. It was the Less-Smoking section, really. If you weren't around in the days of forced communal inhalation, you have no idea how the aroma permeated the dining experience.

"So, how were your pancakes?" the Perkins waitress chirped. "Mild and yet so satisfying," you'd say. "Easy on the draw, too. And the eggs were rich, mellow, and full-flavored, with a taste as big as all outdoors."

Nowadays we react to the smell of cigarettes like a gas leak: Danger! Run! Call the authorities! If someone lit a cigarette in a restaurant, we would think he was either a lunatic or a European.

Nowadays we have e-cigs to help people quit. The state could raise the tax on cigarettes to $20 a pack, and the cigarette companies could put "NOW WITH MORE CADMIUM AND CHIMP URINE" on the box, and people would still buy them. Because they like to smoke, and because they're hooked. E-cigs let you smoke without smoking, and they have nice aromas, in case you wondered what it might be like to inhale room freshener.

But they have nicotine, and are tubular, so we can't let them be socially acceptable. Hence the bans. The state banned them near schools and hospitals to protect children and the sick from seeing vapor clouds emerge from the heads of passers-by. Minneapolis just banned their use in public places, like stores and offices. Bloomington went further and banned e-cig use in the shops that sell them. People have to walk 25 feet away from the store to sample the product. They will comply, because smokers, like dogs, have been trained to go outside. Put a smoker on the International Space Station and he will spend two hours suiting up to go outside to the Designated Smoking Module.

If vapor is a health hazard, we should do something about bathrooms where the hot shower's been running. And since obesity is a public health problem, it's time to ban grocery store samples and make people go out to the parking lot to eat free cheese. We can turn them into pariahs, too. It's such a filthy habit! Look at the ground. Toothpicks everywhere.