One of the first attempts by the government to reduce cigarette smoking amongst the populace occurred about 40 years ago with a couple of laws, one laughably ineffective and the other pioneering on behalf of public health.

The laughable one, creating smoke-free zones within restaurants, eventually was replaced by something a lot more effective. And it reminds me of the futility of creating zones for enforcing just about anything.

(The other one, by the way, was eliminating smoking from all grocery stores, which proved you’ve got to make it all “free”).

Creating a special designated zone within a confined building or space should always be rejected as without any critical or logical thought at best and downright stupidity at worst.

This drama was played out before mine eyes for several years. The first I remember well was at a small Mexican restaurant in Albion called Lopez Taco House, which still serves up the finest wet burrito in Michigan.

The Lopez family, in compliance with the newly-passed law, set aside one table as a non-smoking area. The other dozen or so tables in the small eatery were not designated. So a couple coming to Lopez for a meal could sit at a smoke-free table but be entirely surrounded by smoke from other patrons, thereby making the non-smoking law worthless.

Larger restaurants could divide their establishments in half, one side smoking and one side not. But smoke-avoiding patrons still probably would have to put up with the odor.

In the end, all restaurants and public establishments were made smoke free by law, but it took a long time.

There are other “zones” just as ineffective, but still in play in modern society. We still have “gun-free zones” and “drug-free zones,” both of which do very little if anything about the problem they try to solve.

The most notorious gun-free zone is Chicago, where numerous cities and even rural areas nearby make up for the lack of ability to pack heat in the Windy City. As one gang member said in a recent documentary, it’s as easy to buy a gun in Chicago as it is to buy a bag of chips.

Second Amendment advocates have a field day with gun incidents in gun-free zones, and rightly so. Such designations are worthless and all they really do is tell potential nutjobs where the easy pickings are for a rampage.

Drug-free zones are equally ineffective as well, especially when they are surrounded by a sea of illegal and prescription drugs that can be obtained nearby. Drugs even exist inside prisons.

To be sure, officials will say there is a disincentive to carry or sell drugs in such zones because of harsher penalties, but that works about as well as the death penalty in curtailing murder. In other words, they don’t do what we’re too often told they will do.

So here are three solid examples of designated zones that not only don’t work, but also elicit scorn and derision from the undesirable elements they target.

It’s dangerous to pass and try to enforce laws that are laughable. We’ve got to find better ways to find solutions to very real problems. Trumpeting zones to the world isn’t one of them.