I like to tell my kids stories about the old days – tales of how we walked uphill both ways to school and went to stores to rent movies.
“Yes,” I tell them, “they really used to ask ‘smoking or non?’ before seating you at a restaurant.
“You couldn’t go some places without coming out smelling like an ashtray,” I say. “Your clothes and hair could reek of cigarettes even if you’d never smoked in your life.”
They stare back in disbelief – that I once had hair, and that such a smoke-filled world existed.
“Then in 2005 we saw the light and banned indoor smoking in public places,” I tell them.
They look back, incredulous, and ask how it took so long to make that a law.
“It takes us a while to figure things out,” I say. “Remember that the next time you give me a guilt trip about global warming.”
Now we face a similar question about vaping, an alternative to smoking where people inhale water vapor, often infused with nicotine. The Snohomish Health District might ban vaping in public places, and our latest poll at HeraldNet.com asked if that’s a good idea.
A 58 percent majority favored an outright ban. Another 12 percent said to ban them but allow sampling in stores, a concession sought by vaping businesses. And 4 percent asked “What is vaping?” They can find a handy definition one paragraph ago.
That leaves 26 percent who said not to ban vaping. With the health district looking certain to enact a ban, it appears they vaping fans are going to lose this one.
But they can look on the bright side: One day they can tell their kids about how people used to vape in public. They might even have the lungpower to finish the story.
— Doug Parry, @parryracer
For our next poll, we want to know how to get buses moving on I-5.
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