This would usually go in Press Watch, but the three online commenters for this Pipe Dream article did such a fantastic job dissecting this article, which calls for Stasi-like enforcement of the 20 feet from a building smoking rule, that I’ll just reprint what they wrote. Good job, commenters! If you want to write for the Review, shoot me an email at editor@binghamtonreview.com!
The Article:
Smoking rules should be more strictly enforced
By Rebecca Klar, in Pipe Dream
“Is it too much for me to ask to be able to walk out of my dorm building without having to hold my breath? I know smoking is legal. Everyone has his or her own right to smoke. But let’s be real: For us nonsmokers, it’s just a huge inconvenience…Right now, the rule mandates that those who smoke must do so 25 feet away from every building on campus…
While cigarette smoke irritates me the most. I don’t have to breathe in mucky air from those smoking hookah, and most people have the decency to smoke pot in the woods away from everyone else. So pretty much that just leaves me to disdain the cigarette smokers of CIW…
I don’t really feel bad at all enforcing a rule in which students and faculty are not allowed to smoke in front of buildings, and have to go out of their way to smoke. If it becomes such a big inconvenience, then maybe they should just quit smoking.”
The Comments:
Wolf: The interesting thing about the argument presented here is that while everyone is mad that smokers aren’t 25 feet from the building, no one actually knows WHERE THAT IS. If I asked the author of this article or anyone else to point out where 25 feet from the building is without simultaneously standing too close to another building (especially in CIW, where buildings are incredibly close together), no one can do it. Also, let’s not forget the other parts of this law: smoking is also only to be done 25 feet away from air intake vents and trash cans. Good luck with your tape measure drawing out all the places I can smoke. Secondhand smoke only comes into play if you choose to stand next to a person as they smoke; the occasional whiff caught leaving your dorm is not going to do anything and doesn’t smell any worse than the hallways of our dorm buildings often do. Of course you don’t have a problem inconveniencing smokers- you aren’t one! The insane stigma thrown onto smokers and cigarettes from the time we are young with ads that literally tell flat-out lies (for example, cigarettes contain rat poison- no, they contain a chemical found in some rat poisons that is also found in food preservatives) is incredible. Overeating often is highly detrimental to a person’s health, but Sodexo isn’t going to make people walk off-campus in the freezing cold to eat more than the daily recommended portion. If you’re annoyed by someone playing loud music during normal day hours, you can’t throw their stereo into the street. Sometimes, its just not always about you.
Leonhard Euler: I agree. The author can hold her breath for 3 seconds. If not, maybe she should schedule an appointment with a Pulmonologist. She probably blacks out on weekends but can’t bear to inhale some second hand smoke because according to this society, thats much more unhealthy. Yea, right. Give me a break….
jarober: Here’s a newsflash for you: I would much, much, much rather sit next to a smoker than someone like you. Why? The smoker is highly unlikely to try to control every aspect of my life. You, on the other hand? Your desire to “help” me with more and more controls will never, ever end. Please go live far away from other people; you are the very definition of a sociopath.