Dear Editor:
At the beginning of the semester, Idaho State University put into effect a smoking ban on campus. The idea behind the ban is to keep secondhand smoke away from non-smokers and maybe to push smokers to quit. It is an honorable concept. However, it was poorly executed.
First of all, the policy doesn’t have a penalty for smoking on campus. It’s supposed to be upheld by peer pressure. The problem with that is that with no penalty, peer pressure is useless. If someone was smoking on campus and someone else was to tell him or her that he or she can’t smoke there, the smoker could easily win the conversation by saying, “What are you going to do to about it?”
Not only does the smoker know this, but the person who is supposed to be doing the peer pressuring does too. So the peer-pressure will most likely not happen, and if it does, it will most likely not impact the smoker at all.
The biggest problem with this policy is convenience. It’s not just that it’s convenient for a smoker to smoke on campus but that it’s incredibly inconvenient to not smoke between classes. Smokers are addicted to nicotine. This means that after a couple of hours without it, their brains start to crave it.
They lose focus, become irritable and the only thing they can think about is smoking. Their brain tells them that there is something seriously wrong. It’s the same concept as being hungry but not being able to eat.
In this irrational state of mind even the most law-abiding citizen would give in. When you have four classes in a row with a ten-minute break in between each one, you don’t have enough time to get off campus, smoke and get back to class on time.
So you’re forced to either smoke on campus or be late to class. The lesser of the two evils, in a smoker’s mind, is to smoke on campus. And they will do so even if it means the non-smokers have toxins.
As it stands, there’s nothing we can do about it either. As you’ve probably guessed, I am a smoker. I know smoking is bad. Everyone knows smoking is bad.
That being said, I don’t want anyone who doesn’t want to be around smoke to have to be around it but I don’t want to have to go an uncomfortable amount of time without smoking either.
The best thing for smokers and non-smokers would be putting smoking areas on campus. Then maybe we can look into some form of punishment for the rebels who smoke outside of the smoking areas. Peer pressure is not going to do anything without some back up.
