Starting from Sept. 22, the flavored cigarettes ban entered into force with the reasoning that tasty flavorings attract minors to cigarettes and serve as a gateway to addiction.

Nobody knows how far it will be spread, however, everyone knows that next in the line to be banned are the cigars like Swisher Sweets and flavored tobacco for enormously-popular hookah.

The lawmakers cited numerous researches, but it sounds ridiculous. It is evident that if a child wants to try a cigarette for the first time he will go and steal his father’s Marlboros instead of waiting to be 18 in order to go to a c’ store to finally buy flavored ciggies.

With that reference to flavors, our government should also ban flavored alcohol like liqueur and even condoms, since they could lure kids into trying them.

In addition, teenagers are aware that lighting up a flavored cigarette is a way less cool than having a Marlboro, you see, there is no Swisher Sweet cowboy or even a film called “Harley Davidson and the Black and Mild Man.”

In case the Congress aspires to outlaw all tobacco products, then it’s ok. It is worth respect banning tobacco since it is hazardous for health and addictive, and triggers severe diseases. But prohibiting a small part of a harmful product on the grounds that kids could be enticed because it has a chocolate flavor, is totally absurd and definitely useless.

If judging be the criterion of flavor our wise congressmen should also shut down good old McDonalds KFC and all fast food eateries because they are using flavors to encourage consumption of unhealthy food and contribute to development of obesity, cardiovascular diseases and Type 2 diabetes.

For that reasoning they can also ban Candies, because they are flavored and yummy and so bad for children’s teeth, and beside they increase the sugar level in the blood. You think it is an exaggeration? Maybe, but we are just trying to understand how far that nonsense can reach.

Well, we are all aware of the first case of a nationwide ban on a product that took place in 1920. The federal government banned alcohol trying to reduce alcoholism rates, shut down saloons and pubs, and eradicates crime.

The ban failed completely. Underground saloons were opened in every backstreet. The criminal gangs earned millions by selling bootleg alcohol. The black-market was booming. Those officials who were eager to decrease crime rates managed to increase them twofold. Anyone who wanted to have a drink knew where to go to have it.

These restrictions are not long-term, since there is no chance in enforcing it properly so every American resident would comply with them.

The sole thing this prohibit will successfully do is making everyone aware of the unpopular kind of tobacco products and that it has been recently outlawed. And everyone knows that the best appeal for a teenager is to revolt taking up a product that has been restricted even for the adults’ use.

Bans like the latest ban have been imposed over and over again. Absinthe was prohibited for a while for a great number of reasons, however, nowadays it can be found in almost every store. The major point is that if people want to keep smoking flavored cigarettes, they will find it, either in the black market or elsewhere.

The bottom line is that until tobacco is legal, people will smoke it, no matter if it flavored or not.