Campus Tobacco Bans Are Un-American

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You trudge through the exit of the campus library after spending the entire night glued to a computer screen, cranking out a last minute, 20-page essay on the harmful effects of trigger warnings for your bullshit media ethics class. With the lingering pep of an extended release Adderall waning in your bloodstream, your brain tells you to reach into your pocket and pull out a pack of Camel Filters. Not only do you deserve to satiate your study drug-enhanced nicotine craving – you need to. But when you put the filter to your lips and spark up, someone coughs loudly in your direction. You look over to see a rotund girl in a “Healthy [insert school here]” t-shirt hunched over a balanced breakfast of Chick-Fil-A biscuit sandwiches and hash browns. She coughs at you again. Then, she motions towards a nearby “Tobacco Free Campus” sign.

You take a drag and continue to walk, pretending you didn’t see her. But she’s on a mission, driven by a newfound sense of authority harbored after heading a student-led charge to ban tobacco products from campus. She approaches you, presses one of her sausage fingers to your chest, and reminds you of the campus-wide ban.

Not wanting to make a scene, you extinguish the cigarette on the bottom of your shoe, tuck it in the pack, and relight it when out of her sight. But smokers shouldn’t have to look over their shoulders to enjoy their nicotine fixes. In fact, it’s downright un-American.

The trend of banning tobacco on college campuses is sweeping the nation. As of July 1, over 1,070 universities have implemented 100% smoke-free campuses. Two-thirds of those schools are 100% tobacco free. The number of campuses supporting the policy has doubled since 2012 when the Tobacco Free College Initiative was launched.

Punitive action for being caught by a campus official can range from a warning to a fine, or even mandatory anti-smoking classes.

Most initiatives were led by students striving to reduce the effects of second-hand smoke and promote a health conscious campus lifestyle. But both of those points are straight up bullshit.

First off, second hand smoke. Slate sifted through the data from the 2006 California Air Resources Board Study and a 2007 study from Stanford to discover the truth about secondhand smoke exposure. Smoking in an enclosed public space, like inside of a bar or a restaurant, can potentially yield negative effects for people within the range of 6.5 feet. Further than that, and the harm is reduced to “background effects” or “breathing close to regular air.”

From Slate:

Studies of secondhand smoke have indeed moved outdoors. Their findings support restrictions on lighting up within a few feet of other people. But they don’t warrant more than that.”

In other words, the effects of secondhand smoke cannot be used to justify a smoking ban that spans across every square-inch of campus property. Just give us a few strategically placed smokers’ oases and everybody wins. It certainly doesn’t justify a ban on smokeless tobacco, but they came up with a reason to prohibit that, too: it doesn’t promote a healthy lifestyle.

Basically, colleges are now taking it upon themselves to instill in their students the habits of healthy living. But this isn’t elementary school we’re talking about. College students are grown adults. They should be permitted to do anything they want as long as it doesn’t harm others. Universities bear neither the responsibility nor the right to impose a restriction on something simply because it is bad for their personal health. Same reason they can’t stop (not so little) miss social warrior from housing Chick-Fil-A sandwiches all day (but if they played by their own rules of logic, fast food would be higher on the termination list than tobacco seeing as obesity kills more people).

I appreciate you caring about our health, universities, but your responsibilities lie solely with a student’s education. As Americans, we have the right to slowly but surely rot our gums and lungs from the inside out, throwing thousands of dollars and dozens of years of life down the drain in the process. Dammit, it’s what the founding fathers would have wanted.

[via Slate, Tobacco Free Campus]

Image via YouTube

      1. FrayettevilleLegend

        Canada sucks. You suck. People who say “brah” suck. It all sucks.

        9 years ago at 9:00 pm
    1. Bluto_Brotarsky

      Seeing as not all of us are retarded high school frat stars, probably quite a few people.

      9 years ago at 8:07 am
      1. Shut up Meg

        People smoke on smoke free campuses all the time, i know they do on mine.

        9 years ago at 8:21 am
      2. ScoochMcGooch

        I find it really really really odd that you bring up the high school frat star as a point for your side. Because that’s exactly whose trying to emulate the frat life, the only people I know who still smoke actually started in high school, they are the target audience of cigarette campaigns globally, and 99% of smokers start before age 18.

        9 years ago at 9:04 am
      3. TSMTechGuy

        I want to see where your statistics come from Scooch, because I’m smelling bullshit

        9 years ago at 10:24 am
      4. ScoochMcGooch

        My source is the CDC, bud – except that should say 90%. And then Philip Morris International and RJ Reynolds for marketing campaigns. The other two were anecdotal.

        9 years ago at 11:02 am
      5. TSMTechGuy

        Your anecdotes prove you live under a rock, CDC polls aren’t representative of the whole population, and you’re still wrong about the marketing, as it’s legally impossible for them to campaign effectively, especially to minors. Try again, chief.

        9 years ago at 11:24 am
      6. ScoochMcGooch

        I’ll take CDC over Slate.com for a source, especially when your author here failed to comprehend slate/time. And again, you failed to read the word ” global” or recognize that the legal issue you just noted exists BECAUSE of marketing to children. Hell, they set up shops virtually on school grounds in other countries.

        9 years ago at 12:03 pm
      7. TSMTechGuy

        More bullshit, and where did slate.com come from??? Most countries have even stricter laws than ours, in (I think) Uruguay, cigarette packages have pictures of the side-effects of smoking on them, with similar restrictions in place in other countries. But even disregarding that, you talk about “global campaigns” like they affect the “high school frat stars” you are worried about. The simple fact is, there is no cigarette campaigning in the US and you are getting heated over advertising in 3rd world countries. Now sit the fuck down.

        9 years ago at 5:09 pm
      8. ScoochMcGooch

        Are you retarded? Boosh’s block quote says “From Slate.” Most countries have stricter laws? We’re the strictest. Those package changes are small legal steps than cost billions for governments. Review Australia. Check out Indonesia. Why do you think I said “global” and “not in the US?” But even still, let’s try the US. Joe Camel was quite the character for kids. Check out the Flinstones commercials. And Bluto had the anti- high school frat star comment. I just pointed out that high is when smoking is likely to start. And I’m glad you’re reflecting your heated state back on me. But what I’m really getting at here is wouldn’t this be much easier and comprehensible if we had the fucking forums back? (Today’s a damn boring day.)

        9 years ago at 5:40 pm
      9. TSMTechGuy

        Are you serious? I doubt that a single “high school fratstar” is coming from fucking Indonesia, nor do I care about the cigarette policy of a country I will never see in my life. We definitely do not have the strictest policy by far, and you cite campaigns that ended decades ago and are now BANNED. What a shocker. As I stated before, you clearly live underneath a rock because the world is way different than the one you’re describing.

        9 years ago at 8:00 pm
      10. ScoochMcGooch

        Still chomping on the bait, Jesus… But what about the forums? We could have had links, videos, photos, etc.

        9 years ago at 10:45 pm
      11. ScoochMcGooch

        New to the trolling thing, huh? But really, forums are nice for effective arguments. A paragraph instead of a sentence per topic. Links to the first source on a Google search. Videos embedded instead of telling you ones probably exist. Nobody wins without forums.

        9 years ago at 10:52 pm
  1. Dubya2016

    The best thing about this article is Boosh being up early and posting an article for us working in the eastern time zone

    9 years ago at 8:08 am
  2. waltjrsfratcock

    I don’t know if I could handle that…nothing beats a post-exam heater

    9 years ago at 8:10 am
  3. CommCollege69

    JTrain has been a little redundant lately. Boosh can swoop in and take the top spot.

    9 years ago at 8:11 am
    1. maroonandgold

      With what Regester did with the IGBOTD, and all the columns and stories he posted in the last few weeks, he gets my vote.

      9 years ago at 9:11 am
  4. Bluto_Brotarsky

    Do people seriously think smokers just start once on campus and stop when they leave? Do these morons know how hard it is for someone to quit cold turkey?

    I’m pretty sure this could end up literally killing somebody.

    9 years ago at 8:15 am
    1. HawaiianShirtFridays

      A lot of campuses have designated smoking areas towards the edges of campus.

      9 years ago at 8:22 am
      1. A2TREES

        If you’re in college and addicted to cigs to the point where somebody might die if you can’t have one you might have a problem

        9 years ago at 8:28 am
  5. Mr Pledgemaster Sir

    I know I’ll get a lot of laps for this, but while I don’t think it should be banned, I love that it is on my campus. I don’t want to have to walk through your clouds of smoke and smell like shit before I get to class. Plus I’m going to be completely honest here, smoking is for douchebags and people on welfare.

    9 years ago at 8:17 am
    1. Shoeless_bro_jackson69

      Also for people who are stressed, drink alcohol, do some casual blow, just banged blue chip hooker.. The list of reasons to smoke cigs is pretty long, champ.

      9 years ago at 8:41 am
    2. WestTexasWhiskey

      You seem like the kind of pledge educator that thinks study hours is the worst punishment possible.

      9 years ago at 8:44 am
  6. Toon Squad

    Nothing is better than a nice lip after studying for your finals that’s for sure.

    9 years ago at 8:22 am
      1. FratLip14

        The amount of spitters I’ve left in the library during finals week could easily support a garbage pickers family on bottle returns

        9 years ago at 6:17 pm