Not long after the provincial government banned smoking in bars, a Telegram editor was talking to a St. John's bartender about just how bad it must have been to work in a constant cloud of cigarette smoke.

The bartender said he and other staff had constant headaches and coughs and didn't realize how bad the air was until they decided to redecorate and move the bar's pictures around one day.

"... We took the first picture down and realized the wallpaper used to be white."

Where it hadn't been covered, the wall was brown.

Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that one day may have others looking back and thinking about just how bad things used to be.

The legislation - if it receives final approval - does something that was unthinkable only a decade ago: it enables the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee and legislate everything from nicotine levels in tobacco companies' products to their ability to use additives and flavourings that can make cigarettes more palatable to smokers.

In recent years, the tobacco industry's unique position in the States has been obvious: despite containing known carcinogens, nicotine products were subject to fewer regulations than cosmetics or pet food.

The new legislation brings in some standards Canadians are already familiar with, like large, graphic health warnings, by 2012. The words "light" and "low tar" will disappear from U.S. cigarette packages by next year. Rules for flavoured tobacco are coming here, too.

Observers say the legislation could also allow the FDA to limit the 60 known carcinogens present in cigarette smoke.

Clifford Douglas, the director of the Tobacco Research Network at the University of Michigan, was blunt: "This is a historic step, changing the nature of tobacco in society forever."

Legislators feel the changes, which also include broad advertising restrictions and strict rules for new products that contain nicotine, could reduce adult smoking by two per cent, and youth smoking by 11 per cent.

Law as broad as this often has an interesting echo in other jurisdictions; once one area moves successfully forward, others follow.

And if you think we're already doing enough to curb things like teen smoking, take a look at the clot of students at high schools like Prince of Wales Collegiate in St. John's - 50 or more gathered along a chain-link fence just inches off school property for that all-important smoke before classes start in the morning.

That's not to say this province hasn't made any strides when it comes to getting people to butt out. The provincial government's efforts to remove display advertising "power walls" was a good start, even though we were the last province in the country to take that step.

But there are aspects of the American changes that are well worth watching.

It will be interesting to see what the FDA can do, and whether the new oversights will put another nail in the coffin of the "coffin-nail" industry.

Sometimes, keeping up with the Joneses is not such a bad idea.