Smokers unite!
The University Health Center’s Campus Advisory Board has launched an anti-tobacco crusade to stop Erb Essentials, the EMU convenience store, from selling cigarettes and to extend the no-smoking area around campus buildings to 50 feet.
“The ultimate (goal) for campuses is to have a totally smoke-free campus where there is no smoking on campus grounds,” said Paula Staight, the Health Center’s director of health information. Staight called the advisory board’s current campaign “baby steps” and said the University may be 10 or 20 years away from totally banning smoking on campus.
Who appointed the advisory board to be the anti-tobacco police? College students — or the vast majority of them — are adults, and should be permitted to smoke on campus.
Smoking is smelly, addictive, harmful to your health and just plain stupid, but if students want to smoke, the powers that be should let them.
Eliminating tobacco sales at Erb Essentials will not make anybody quit smoking. It will just annoy students who have to go off campus to buy their cigarettes and eliminate a source of revenue for the EMU, which is due for major renovation and needs all the money it can get.
The fact that Erb Essentials sells cigarettes does not constitute a University endorsement of smoking. It merely recognizes that 22 percent of University students smoke, according to a Health Center survey, and many of them like to have a convenient place to buy their cigarettes.
Moving smokers farther away from buildings is a good idea. But if the University is going to push smokers out into the rain, they should build shelters where students can smoke and stay dry.
The stigma smokers face these days is extraordinary. They can’t walk down the street without getting disapproving glares, not to mention the nagging they continually receive from family and friends imploring them to quit.
Non-smokers often like to say they have a right not to breathe second-hand smoke. It’s funny, but I can’t seem to find that one anywhere in the Constitution.
Smoking in public places is not merely a campus issue. Local governments from Eugene to New York City have enacted smoking bans. Miraculously, Lexington, Ky., passed its own smoking ban in July, the Southern equivalent to Idaho banning potatoes.
What is happening to smokers in the United States exemplifies the so-called tyranny of the majority that Alexis De Tocqueville wrote about more than a hundred years ago. The danger of democracy, De Tocqueville wrote, is that the majority can impinge on the rights of the minority.
The parallels are clear. Smokers make up a minority of the voting population, so non-smokers can screw them over by restricting smoking.
The anti-smoking movement is yet another example of modern Americans valuing safety over liberty, an inversion of the values espoused by the founders of our country.
From smoking bans to bicycle helmet laws, people think they have a duty to save others from themselves. I say, if someone wants to make poor decisions that could be detrimental to their health, that’s their business.
The Health Center should be applauded for providing nicotine gum and patches for students who want to quit smoking, but there is a difference between helping smokers who seek help and restricting the rights of those who don’t. The attitude of Staight and her allies is well-intentioned, but simultaneously maternalistic and condescending.
EMU staff will explain to the EMU Board of Directors the financial impact of what will happen should Erb Essentials cease selling tobacco. The meeting is today at 4 p.m. in the EMU Board Room and represents an excellent opportunity for students on either side of the issue to voice their opinions.