Here’s my millennial trait: I can’t stand smoke.
These days, the smell of pot seems to take over quite a few places, mostly parking lots. You get out of the car, and before you’ve even locked the doors, there it is. It’s skunky, it’s strong, and it hangs in the air long after whoever made it has driven away.
But I’m not going to just point fingers at the stoners. I have neighbors, a few older guys a couple of houses away, who like to sit outside and smoke cigars. The smell is just as bad as the marijuana, and it drifts right across the yards. I have a feeling those same guys complain about “the youth these days” and their weed. Smoke is smoke. A cigar doesn’t smell better just because it comes with a lawn chair and a few decades of tradition.
Outdoors Is Still Better Than Indoors#
To be fair, outdoors is still better than indoors. Outside, the smoke spreads out, the wind carries it off, and you can usually walk away from it. That wasn’t always an option.
I grew up with smoking sections in restaurants. The host would ask, “Smoking or non?” as if the answer made a difference. It’s not like the smoke stayed in the smoking section. It drifted over the half-wall, through the whole dining room, and into your clothes and hair. The bowling alley was even worse. The place just stunk, and you’d come home smelling like an ashtray even if you never touched a cigarette.
Then one day it went away. A state law passed, smoking indoors in public places ended, and just like that, restaurants and bowling alleys smelled like food and lane oil instead of stale smoke.
You Don’t Know What You’ve Got#
Even though I lived through the smoky years, I quickly came to take the change for granted. Smoke-free became normal so fast that I forgot what it used to be like.
Then I took a trip across state lines to Missouri, and a dinner in St. Louis brought it all back. Missouri is one of the few states without a statewide smoke-free law. It leaves most of the decisions to cities, counties, and business owners, which means the rules change from one place to the next and there are still exceptions. Sitting there, I was reminded how nice it is to not have cigarette smoke in indoor places you can’t escape. I do not want to taste cigarette smoke with my food!
This Isn’t Just About the Smell#
The smell is the part you notice, but the harm is the part that matters. Back in 2006, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Even short exposures can be harmful, especially for kids and for people with asthma or heart disease. Secondhand smoke from cigars contains the same kinds of toxic chemicals as cigarette smoke, and a cigar puts out a lot more of it. Marijuana smoke contains many of the same harmful substances as tobacco smoke too.
That’s why smoke-free laws were such a big deal. They protected the waitress and the bartender, who had to breathe that air for an entire shift, and the kids who didn’t get a choice about where their parents took them to dinner.
The Next Generation Gets Clean Air#
I’m very happy that the next generation doesn’t have to live through that smell and harm in public places. Most kids today have never been asked “smoking or non?” and have no idea what a bowling alley used to smell like. That’s a win.
Now we just need to stop them from vaping, for their own sake. Vapes were marketed as the safer option, and plenty of teens picked them up without ever touching a cigarette. The research is still catching up, but it isn’t looking good. A 2026 review of more than 100 studies, led by researchers at UNSW Sydney and published in the journal Carcinogenesis, concluded that nicotine e-cigarettes are likely associated with lung and oral cancer, although there isn’t yet enough long-term data to say how big the risk is. Other studies have found higher lung cancer risk in people who both smoke and vape. On top of that, there’s the nicotine itself, which is highly addictive and especially hard on developing brains.
We cleared the smoke out of restaurants, bars, and bowling alleys. It would be a shame to let a fruity cloud of vapor undo that progress. If you have kids or grandkids, talk to them about it, and maybe skip the cigar on the porch while you’re at it.
Sources: Surgeon General’s report on secondhand smoke (CDC), Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights: Missouri, ESMO Open systematic review on vaping and lung cancer.
