Smoking Ban Still Hazy
Submitted by GAgathos on Wed, 03/07/2007 - 00:30.
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By George Agathos
Yesterday’s University Senate meeting ran late, effectively postponing a planned vote on a proposed campus-wide smoking ban. The postponement came as the University Senate and Campus Environment Committee’s smoking ban subcommittee released two reports of opposing opinion on the matter. The final report of the committee supported a total campuswide ban, however a minority report issued by six of the 12 students on the 27 member subcommittee disputed the necessity and effectiveness of such a ban. “We feel that these steps are unfeasible, unenforceable and make the campus smoking policy weaker rather than stronger,” the minority report says. “We feel that the policy recommendations from the GSO and USG contribute to a stronger, more feasible, and more enforceable policy that salvages the spirit of a total smoking ban while still being enforceable.“ The subcommittee was formed in November after a vote on the proposal was postponed. In September, both the Graduate Student Organization and the Undergraduate Student Government passed identical resolutions condemning the proposal. The proposal, as amended by the final report of the subcommittee, calls for steps to be taken leading up to a complete smoking ban within three years. |
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My thoughts on the proposed ban
I hate smoking too. But if you ban smoking, why not also ban alcohol as well? Why not ban anything else that can become addictive? Heck, the internet can become an addiction and there's plenty of terrible things one can do online. Let's ban that too.
Honestly, it doesn't bother me if people smoke in their dorm room if all the residents of that room or suite have agreed that it's okay, and it doesn't bother me if people smoke by the entrance to buildings. Breathing in cigarette smoke for the 0.25 seconds it'll take me to walk past those groups and into the building won't kill me. Besides, if Stony Brook cared about clean air, they'd do something about those disgusting, smoke-spewing buses which allegedly contain "some of the brightest minds in the country."
Besides, the current policy (no smoking within 15 feet of entrances to buildings) isn't enforced, and the main rationale the University Senate seems to be using to justify the ban is litter. Perhaps if they cleaned litter on campus (and shoveled the snow and salted the paths while they're at it), that would be much less of a problem as well. Then again, this is Stony Brook, so what am I saying. The place seems to run on a bizarro form of logic.