Smokers say it’s hard to quit cold turkey. It’s why there’s big business in vaping, nicotine patches, prescription quitting aids and chewing gum — both nicotine-laced and the regular kind.

There’s one big exception to the difficulty that addicted smokers have in climbing that cold-turkey mountain.

Atlantic City casinos have found it very easy to cease smoking in an instant. They did it with a stroke of Gov. Phil Murphy’s pen last September, a day or two after Murphy inexplicably allowed lighting up to resume as gaming halls reopened from their mandated COVID-19 hiatus. After considerable pushback, Murphy did a speedy 180: He banned the butts again.