(The following is from a reading response I had to do for a college blog)
Oh boy… Here we go. This one’s gonna be fun. In T. Leigh Maxwell’s “A Deadly Education,” the age-old “Second-Hand Smoke Debate” and its effects on students here at Clayton State University are explored. Maxwell claims that students currently attending CSU to get their “higher education” (Heh… I see what she did there) are forcibly made prone to endure disgusting people who smoke their disgusting and toxic cigarettes in front of the various entrances to the school (Maxwell). She (I’m assuming the author is a woman because of the given middle name, though I’ve been wrong before) argues that non-smoking students are stripped of their rights to breathe smoke-free air. She further states that Georgia currently enforces smoking bans in public spaces, so it seems illogical that the public colleges do not enforce total smoking bans statewide. Huh?
Georgia public colleges DO in fact ban smoking within any campus building and even usually enforce designated smoking areas a certain amount of feet away from buildings and building entrances. Here at CSU, you cannot smoke within 30 feet of any prominent entrance. Maxwell complains that non-smoking students are “forced to pass through obnoxious clouds of smoke as they penetrate the mass of smoking students standing just beyond the restricted area puffing away “ (Maxwell). She then cites arguments that non-smoking students have the right to smoke at school because they pay to attend. Well, that’s kind of a vague argument, but I say they’re damn right! These students DID pay to attend this school, just as (Assumed) Ms. Maxwell did. Both parties pay to attend this school. Both parties have CHOSEN to come to this school. In very broad strokes, I would suggest that if Ms. Maxwell doesn’t like the current rules, then she can either lobby to have the Board change the restrictions, or she can choose to take her pursuit of higher (Elitist) learning elsewhere (See what I did there?).
But that is indeed a very basic response. Let me break it down a little more specifically. Maxwell continues to cite all of the various studies done on all of the various side-effects and consequences of inhaling second-hand smoke. I won’t argue with the results; Smoking is definitely bad for your lungs, you teeth, and various other aspects of your life and body. However, it would also then be fair to argue that viruses are harmful to the carrier and everyone around them. If I have the right to breathe fresh, clean air, free from cigarette smoke, then I ALSO have the right to breathe fresh, clean air, free from sickness-causal bacteria and contagion. Please ban all sick students from CSU or have them stand 30 feet away from the entrances to school buildings while they are sick. Oh, but you argue they could stay home and be sick, so smokers should stay home and smoke. Fair enough. Then let’s try this one: Maxwell claims that in one of her various studies found that a smoker produces just as much smoke as toxic polluting vehicles (Maxwell). I’m sorry, but a smoker smoking a pack a day does NOT produce the same amount of pollution and carcinogens as a diesel-fueled semi driving cross country for twenty plus hours. If Maxwell’s claim is true however, then our right to breathe clean, fresh air is also jeopardized by the various clogged parking lots we have here at CSU, so the vehicles and parking lots should also be banned. Let’s all just take the public transportation that Clayton County provides so that we could all make it to school and breathe fresh air. Wait a second… WE DON’T HAVE THAT! Not to mention public transportation also contributes to air cleanliness.
Maxwell argues that smoking bans have been around for hundreds of years, citing instances in Europe where Catholics were banned from smoking around churches on the promise that if caught they’d be Excommunicated. Just because smoking bans have been around for so long, does not mean they are right. They take away the rights of some individuals, and that’s not right. You cannot argue to have your rights enforced while taking the rights of someone else away. Maxwell also cites that 365 colleges nation-wide enforce “total smoking bans” on campus, including parking lots. Hmm, those pesky, polluting cars are still legal though.
I believe people do have the right to breathe fresh, clean air. But I also believe that people have a right to spend their money (Hard earned or otherwise, I suppose, in this day and age) how they see fit. If someone wants to buy cigarettes that give them cancer, emphysema, or any other of the hundreds of diseases smoking can cause, they have the right to. You also have the right to choose to not walk around those people. Maybe there should be designated smoking areas around the school campus to better section off smokers from non, but that wasn’t the argument. Ms. Maxwell wants to deprive smokers of their right to smoke COMPLETELY while they’re at school. That’s not gonna fly.
Smoking is disgusting. I will never smoke a cigarette. But I will never take away someone else’s freedom. I am not a smoker. Freedom. That’s my anti-drug.
(As an aside, my mother has recently suffered the side-effects of a smoking since a young age. She was forced to quit after her lungs decided they had had enough. I know she didn’t want to, and the battle she went through at the hospital was no joke. I didn’t think she was coming home. But she did. And I know it’s been tough, but I am so proud of her for being smoke-free since May 2010. Mom, you’re so awesome!)
Image taken from three-cig.com
