If you were king, just think of all the bad habits and harmful activities you could bring to an end by simple decree.

Local residents could be barred from skateboarding and bike-riding, because sometimes those means of transportation are involved in crashes that leave people injured.

The Tootsie-Roll Pop could also be barred because of its high sugar content and the irritating noise emanating from owls discovering how many licks it takes to get to the center.

New rules about who could wear tight-fitting athletic clothing on the community's trails might be in order. Hey, folks, there are some things your neighbors just don't need to see, right?

Would that be going too far? We remember a certain New York City mayor/king who suggested outlets in his fair city should not be allowed to sell sugar-filled sodas bigger than 16 ounces, and was able to get the city's health board to agree with him. In the fight against obesity, is any government action really going too far if it protects people from themselves and helps make people healthier?

Some Rogers Parks Commission members might feel right at home in The Big Apple. Just the other day, Nathan Gairham pondered whether city government should ban electronic cigarettes on the city's trails and in its parks.

Anything with the name "cigarettes" is bound to be unpopular these days. Cities have put severe limitations on those who still want to engage in the deadly behavior of inhaling the chemicals contained in tobacco rolled up for smoking. The industry is nothing if not innovative, however, and has developed so-called electronic cigarettes as a way to deliver nicotine without the side-effects associated with secondhand smoke.

Smoking bans were driven by an active and organized campaign focused on the negative effects of secondhand smoke on bystanders and, to a lesser degree, by the litter associated with the unhealthy habit. Public health necessitated the bans, advocates said.

But are electronic cigarettes the same? These battery-powered devices look and feel like smoking, but the vapor emitted isn't smoke. Their impact on the immediately surrounding area is minimal. E-cigs are no doubt less dangerous than traditional cigarettes in terms of their impact on bystanders.

So what's the government interest in barring them from public places like trails and parks?

"The ordinance already bans the use of any tobacco products on the trails and parks. To me, an electronic cigarette is still a cigarette," Barney Hayes, Rogers parks director, said.

Yeah, except they're not. One can certainly debate whether enough research has been done to detail the dangers of e-cigs to the user, but they do not represent dangers to passersby and do not, any more than the packaging of a sport drink or nutrition bar, represent a threat of more litter on trails and in parks areas.

Government intervention ought to be about protecting public health and welfare. The argument for doing so is far weaker for e-cigs than for cigarettes themselves. Although we advise against the use of any sort of nicotine product, people also have every right to engage in a behavior that isn't helping their own health as long as they're not harming someone else's.

The idea of banning e-cigs on the basis that they look like cigarettes holds no more water -- indeed, far less -- than the idea of banning sugary sodas or hamburger meals that total more calories than most humans should consume in a day, must less a single meal.

We don't recommend banning either.