AP photo

A study in New England, published this month, found that teen-agers living in towns with strict smoking bans in restaurants were 40 percent less likely to become regular smokers than those in areas with no bans or weak ones.
 
 That’s not surprising, and you know why? Because kids want to do what looks cool. And I think one of the most uncool looking things is people congregated outside a building, puffing a way.

 You can say what you want about the fairness of indoor smoking bans.  But that kind of image, of people puffing away like outcasts outside an office, bar or restaurant, is probably doing more to discourage cigarette smoking than all the public service messages, broadcast and published over the past 10 years, combined.

 Whether you feel sorry for the people puffing away or not, it just LOOKS  terrible.

 There’s more on the study here.