[mchannon]

A generation ago these kids would've gotten busted for smoking old-fashioned cigarettes ("Smokin' in the boys room"). Two generations ago it was legal to buy (at some states at age 16) and legal to possess and use, except on school grounds. Three generations ago it was legal even in doctor's offices and hospitals.

California and Massachusetts (and oddly enough, Mississippi) are stoking up a new hysteria with public health spending in an effort to keep people of all ages from switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigs.

I see six-figure earners on the sidewalks of San Francisco smoking old-fashioned cancer sticks and very few vaping. I wonder- did my tax dollars dissuade them from upgrading their habit? Second-hand smoke is substantially safer from vaping, but actual health of nonsmokers must not be these states' priorities.

There are rumblings about regulating nicotine content in real cigarettes. If they were to regulate vape juices (like limit the worst precarcinogenic bases), I think that's a much better (and cheaper!) place to devote public resources.

[ams6110]

Only a generation ago smoking was still allowed at many high schools. It was at mine (1980s). There was a designated outdoor smoking area for the kids that smoked.

[pducks32]

I wonder if they had one now, only for cigarettes, how many kids would do it and withstand the social humiliation that exists with teenagers around smoking cigarettes.

[danisth]

My high school had an on property smoking area until around 2003. The east coast of Canada can be pretty backwards I guess..

[rconti]

You must know that smoking rates have tanked all across California and particularly in urban areas. Maybe the advertising is meant to get ahead of the vaping 'problem', to get people to quit cold turkey rather than switching to vaping, or to prevent kids from vaping.

The fact that you see a few people smoking cigarettes outside an office building doesn't mean both of these campaigns didn't work.