Skin droops off the jowls. The mouth shrivels, while the lips purse tightly. Jagged ridges crease the forehead, while fleshy ravines slash downward from the eye sockets across the cheekbones, like how ski trails look in summertime.

Nothing should make a person quit smoking faster than watching their face melt.

Thursday marked the annual Great American Smokeout, a “holiday” designed to spur tobacco users to ditch the habit. This year, GlaxoSmithKline brought age-progression technology to Central Maine Medical Center, to show smokers what could happen to them on the outside.

What tobacco does to the insides is well-known: blackened lungs, stained teeth and increased chance of cancerous cells are established perils of smoking. The age progression software is a mirror on the future, and slowly shows smokers the evolution of their face into a twisted mask.

The reaction is usually of shock. Dennis D’Amico, of GlaxoSmithKline, said the scary software dissuades younger smokers, as the prospect of prematurely shriveled skin proves more motivating than faraway concerns like cancer.

Yet the “scared straight” approach of the software, or its companion breath test that measures the age of smokers lungs, only pushes smokers to the brink. The person – the smoker – must want to quit. No gimmick, or public policy, can make them.

Which is why efforts like Bangor’s smoking ban proposal is problematic. The city is weighing a $50 fine for smoking inside an automobile carrying children, as an additional offense if the driver is stopped for another reason.

People shouldn’t smoke around children. People shouldn’t smoke in cars. People shouldn’t smoke period, but passing a law to punish them is likely feel-good legislation that looks great on paper, but is miserable in practice. And, as much as smoking is deplorable, civil liberties can’t be ignored.

It takes support to quit. Like what Angelyn Adams, 23, of Wilton and Chantelle Breton, 22, of Sabattus are giving each other. Both has smoked since their pre-teen years, between a half-pack and a pack per-day, and both watched the age-progression software and took the breath test at CMMC on Thursday.

Breton, after the breath test, found out her lungs are 28 years old. Adams has had two serious surgeries this year. Together, they have chosen Jan. 1 as their quit date, and seem intent on keeping it. We hope they do.

Quitting shouldn’t be done alone, or spurred by fear or punishment. This is why support groups like Healthy Androscoggin are likely more effective in prompting smokers to quit than any gadget or ordinance.

Healthy Androscoggin’s five-week Quit and Win program, for example, asks smokers to register with a buddy to help them through the process. It claims a gaudy quitting success rate of 44 percent. The eighth annual Quit and Win started Thursday. Call Healthy Androscoggin at 795-5990 for more information.

Quitting smoking is hard enough, without being scared or legislated into it.