The Traveler

It obvious that little thought went into this ban. It needs completely rethought, rewritten and put to a campus vote of Students, Faculty and Staff.

I have asthma. I didn't ask for it or do anything to get it, it just happened. I have lived with it for years and have methods to prevent asthma attacks. That said, there is no method of asthma attack prevention for me when I am around cigarette smoke. I am heavily affected on a daily basis on the U of A campus due to smokers. It seems every door I walk out of, especially in the cold weather, has a group of smokers smoking. That is not the power of one cigarette, oh no, it is the immediate woft of several. I have the right the breathe clean air and not have my health harmed in it's weak condition. While I realize smokers have the right to smoke, that does NOT give them the right to impare someone else's health. A designated area far from any entrances or exits wouldn't be horrible, but I doubt in the cold weather all smokers would walk there to get a quick puff.

Obviously the rule about keeping smokers 20 feet away from entrances should be enforced. That should prevent Sara's asthma and preserve smokers' rights.

Easy solution.

The reason that some kind of smoking ban on campus is right is the same reason that a smoking ban in the city of Fayetteville is wrong, there is a difference between public and private property. The university is a public institution.

Contrary to what one nonsmoker wrote in the traveler, many nonsmokers are affected and inundated by smoking for two reasons:

1: Many (no, not all) smokers are rabidly inconsiderate and believe that the 25 feet refers to how far you are to stay from them.

2: 25 feet is not far enough.

3: People do, in fact, still smoke inside some of the buildings.

I'm just hoping that an outright ban will get these people 25 feet away.

It should be noted that research shows that tobacco smoke only affects your health if you are less than 18 inches away from the smoker. You really shouldn't be that close to anyone.

Originally posted by

MJ

It should be noted that research shows that tobacco smoke only affects your health if you are less than 18 inches away from the smoker. You really shouldn't be that close to anyone.

Whatever hat you pulled that tidbit out of, it's a ludicrous oversimplification. The effects of smoke have little to do with distance from the source of the smoke, but rather the concentration of toxins and duration of exposure.

Twenty-five feet is usually not far enough. The old policy causes everyone to have to run a gauntlet of smokers and toxins at every building entry.

The situation is exacerbated during stable atmospheric conditions, when smoke doesn't readily float or blow away, and concentrations just build up in one spot. It's especially bad at recessed entryways (such as at Bell Engineering Center) or those with awnings. A smoker may be 25 feet from the door but still be inside the entryway, where smoke collects almost as if in a balloon.

The question is not how far from buildings is far enough, it's how far from buildings and sidewalks, without being upwind of them. Otherwise, smoke is still forced upon us all, only farther from the classroom. Clearly the only way to accomodate people who wish to inhale smoke on campus while not infringing on the free breathing of everyone else is to have designated smoking areas that are out of the way of most foot traffic.

As irksome as this must be for the former group, it's understandable why an official charged with optimizing the university's collective health would decide against going out of her way and spending money to enable smokers to continue to pollute the grounds of a public institution.

In practice, of course, we can't afford to make smokers unhappy, because there are still several of them. That consideration would seem to justify having us all foot a share of the bill for the construction of some sheltered, designated smoking areas, however irksome the idea might be to some non-smokers. I'm okay with that; that's the way things are. (It's better than having partiers' cab fares extorted from us with the implication that if we didn't provide their safe ride, they might choose to drive drunk and kill somebody...)

It's pretty crazy when you think about it. If I stood around outside a classroom building or the football stadium with a smoldering roll of tar or styrofoam or benzene-soaked paper or just about anything, wafting a cloud of carcinogenic fumes over bystanders, it wouldn't take long for me to be arrested, maybe charged with assault or terrorism of some kind.

Unless it's tobacco, because we are all used to that. So used to it that to some readers I probably sound quite extreme and radical in just pointing it out.

It's the year 2007, folks. Nobody should be smoking anymore. But if they choose to, they certainly shouldn't foist it upon others. The question should not be how much poison is it okay to expose random passersby to, and can we claim that research shows it doesn't affect them as much below a certain level.

Breathing in even heavily concentrated tobacco fumes for a few seconds every day is not going to give you cancer.

You say that relatively brief exposures to cigarette smoke will not "give you cancer." That's somewhat correct, but the point is moot because it's not right to decide whether to subject other people to something against their will based solely upon whether it's likely to kill them. "It won't kill him, so why not?" Surely that's not how you'd want to be treated. Again, the question should not be to how much poison is it okay to expose random passersby.

(Nor, by the way, are there many things of which a certain amount will "give you cancer". Who knows which microscopic interaction is the one that damages that first cell just enough to finally push it over the edge into malignancy? Every case is different, but statistically every little bit of exposure accumulates to increase the risk.)

Due to the passage of air, people are subject to all sorts of unwanted odors, fumes and sounds. Welcome to life.

I'm sure you've heard, "Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."

Secondhand smoke harms you over long-term, concentrated, repeated exposure, such as if you work in a bar or live with a smoker. In the doses that are unavoidable, such as a few seconds of somewhat concentrated smoke as you walk out of a building, tobacco is not going to harm you, unless you have a specialized allergy.

I know the smell of smoke really annoys you Trevor, and we all have our pet peeves, but get over it already.

It's nice that the few thousand on campus students had a say in the smoking ban, but what about the rest of us? I am an off campus student, shouldn't my opionion count as much? Am I not paying tuition as well? I, like Sara, have asthma. I have have a strong allergic reaction to smoke which triggers sever asthma attacks. If the smokers refuse to observe the city ordinace requireing them to be 25 feet from building entrances can we really expect them to respect and use specified smoking areas? If people cannot use their privlages responsibly then they do not deserve the privilage in the first place. Smoking is a privilage, not a protected right.

I think everyone's agreeing that the 25-foot ban should be better enforced. That would seem to solve everyone's problems. There's no reason non-smokers like myself should be unable to avoid smoke being blown in my face, and there's no reason smokers should have their personal choices stripped away.

Enforce the 25-foot ban. Everyone wins.

I have asthma. I do not smoke. I have never smoked.

That said, I cannot state strongly enough how opposed I am to this ban.

The reason is that this ban is about morality; it is not about health.

It's about people feeling that it is morally wrong to use tobacco, and that it is morally justifiable to force people not to use it.

Why do I say this?

First: The ban is on ALL USE of tobacco. While I may find spit cans a little grotesque, I find it hard to belief that someone chewing tobacco is going to give me second-hand exposure. Banning chewing tobacco (which is included) cannot possibly increase the health of any person other than (potentially) the user. In fact, if I use tobacco to decorate my office, I am violating the campus tobacco ban; and this is plain ludicrous.

(And I will, in fact, be decorating my office with tobacco in protest of the ban, should it actually happen.)

Second: The pollution caused by vehicles, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, utility carts, generators, scooters, and all the other internal-combustion engines on campus cause far more cancer-causing (and global-warming causing) pollution on campus than the smokers. If we really wanted to clean up the air on campus, these would be eliminated first.

Third: There are many people who have violent allergies to various scents, perfumes, deodorants, and other fragrances that quite a few people overuse on a daily basis. If we were serious about eliminated airborne allergy-causing substances, we'd be policing that too.

Fourth: There are many other substances freely available on campus that cause significant harm to the user. Sugar-laced sodas are abundant; candy machines; heck, some offices even have those vile producers of heavy-duty stimulants (known to cause heart attacks!) called "coffee makers." That we turn a blind eye to these other drugs, and, in fact, promote their use. Thus, the real concern in the tobacco ban cannot be the user's health.

25 feet, if properly enforced, is more than enough to ensure that asthma sufferers like I am do not get a snoot full of smoke and have an attack. Enforce the smoking distance, and leave off with attempting to legislate moral use of one's own body. It didn't work with alcohol prohibition in the 20s and 30s; it hasn't worked with drug prohibition in the 60s to now; it hasn't worked with prohibitions against prostitution for hundreds of years; and it's not going to work now.

You cannot protect people from themselves. And attempting to do so is, frankly, morally WRONG.