Baffled by smoking ban

Having just transferred from a small liberal arts college where smoking was a favorite pastime of a majority of the students, I was shocked to discover that IU is attempting to become a tobacco-free campus. Being new here, however, I have to ask: What exactly are the reasons for this ban?

Cigarette butts littering the ground? The health and well-being of students who choose not to smoke? If indeed these are at the heart of the issue, then my response is this: preposterous!

Anyone who smokes (myself included) knows that it is no difficult act to stub a cigarette and throw the butt in a trash can or ashtray. If they don’t, it’s a matter of littering, not tobacco use. Problem one solved.

Anyone who knows anything about the fluidity of air and the atmosphere around us will tell you that tobacco smoke loosed into the wind disperses quickly and easily, leaving perhaps one tobacco smoke part per million parts of air. Furthermore, anyone who knows anything about air pollution and negative effects on respiratory health will tell you that the exhaust from a car is far worse for a passerby than the exhalations of a smoker.

Second-hand smoke causing damage in the open air? Impossible. No one at IU is going to suffer any detriment to their health by walking next to a person puffing away, or for that matter, even standing next to a smoker. Problem two solved.

However, it is not my intention to attempt to justify smoking or argue against the tobacco-free ban in general. I would merely like to point out that the suggestion of doling out citations to smokers – smokers who pay to attend this school and keep it running – is a suggestion akin to massive abuse of power and violation of the rights of a person.

Why punish someone for simply doing what they enjoy and of which you do not approve? What if I ran around citing people who bleach their hair or spit in public or wear boot-cut jeans? I’d be considered a tyrant.

Do the students who fought for this ban really want to ostracize a portion of the student body, making them feel like second-class citizens? Smoking does not define a person, just like boot-cut jeans and bleach-blonde hair don’t either.

What I’m trying to say is, if you see someone smoking and they’re not near a building and minding their own business, don’t put them down by putting them out. Smokers are people too.
 
Chase McPeak
IU junior