The smoker glared and went on smoking. My wife said, "Please, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke." The woman glared again. After a minute, she asked, "Are you really allergic?" My wife nodded, and the woman put out her cigarette.

So suppose cigarettes were banned. People would stop smoking in public. This is bad? And if cigarettes weren't manufactured here and could only be smuggled in, with the smugglers risking the same punishments as smugglers of other dangerous drugs, prices would rocket. Certainly the number of new smokers would plummet.

In "Puff off," (May 11, The Jerusalem Post) we were treated to an extended kvetch by Sydney Schanberg, bemoaning the fact that nonsmokers are "abandoning civility." He managed to stun readers (I hope) with the asinine comment, "Do I object to their cheap cologne?"