COLUMN: Everyone head for the ‘smoke-easy’
I echo the famous words of George Santayana when he said that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I fear that the anti-tobacco movement is following the same failed path that the temperance movement did in the last century. I am not a smoker; I do so out of my own choosing. As I have explained in a previous article on the same topic, I do not contest the negative health effects of smoking. I hate to hit the same issue again so soon, but after attending the Student Wellness Center’s Tobacco Task Force meeting last week, I feel the need to do so.
The task force was very polite and gracious and I hope to continue to attend their meetings in the coming months. Right now they are drafting changes to university policy to include a complete ban on tobacco sales on campus and designating the TSC Patio as a smoke-free environment.
Banning sales and further restricting areas in which people can smoke is less an issue about health than it is forcing individuals to quit by continually restricting their ability to choose. Every time I expressed concern for the smoker’s right to light up, they assured me that they were only looking after the best interests of non-smokers and that all individuals could smoke as long as they did so within the certain restrictions. When I suggested that the university designate or build a smoking area that followed those restrictions and allowed smokers to sit down in a dry area, my idea was shot down because it somehow fostered smoking.
They spoke of breaking up the smoking cliques and isolating individual smokers in an attempt to make them less comfortable to light up no matter where they are. They also championed Salt Lake City’s recent ban on smoking in parks and public places and Belmont, California’s complete ban on smoking as the kind of success that they would like to attain. How long until we ban tobacco altogether and turn these individuals into illicit drug users who huddle in confined smoking dens like the speak-easies of yesteryear?
I guess the task force believes in tough love. Asking people to voluntarily quit using under-publicized resources available on campus wasn’t successful, so they are going to limit consumer rights, limit the areas in which they can smoke until they have no choice but to quit, and further demonize the American tobacco consumer. I am a bleeding heart liberal who cringes when he sees the effects of addiction and disease. I want to do everything in my power to empower people to make healthier and safer decisions, but I guess it’s the rogue libertarian spirit in me that cringes when an institution makes communal decisions at the expense of a minority.
I encourage the task force’s efforts in educating our campus on the health effects of smoking and providing cessation support for current smokers. I’d even support a greater presence of tasteful anti-tobacco advertising and quitting information in areas that sell tobacco. I cannot support their current direction though; it clearly alienates and demonizes the smoker instead of reaching out to them.
I invite you all to voice your opinions and join me if you believe that smokers have the right to purchase tobacco products, to smoke them within the appropriate places and to try to quit or choose to not quit based on their own choices.
This isn’t smoker versus non-smoker, this is about personal choice and freedom and redirecting the university’s role so that it becomes more of an educator and a healthy choice facilitator instead of a dictator.
Tonight’s homework: glare at an obese man for eating a Big Mac at your local McDonald’s.
Class dismissed.
Matthew Blackham is a junior majoring in sociology. Comments can be sent to matblackham@cc.usu.edu.