‘Right’ to smoke in public is a ‘historical oddity’

Publication Date: 11/02/2009

I am writing regarding the recent debates on the proposal of a campus-wide smoking ban. As a non-smoker, I wholeheartedly support the current proposal to impose a smoking ban across the campus.

First of all, smokers are not really abiding by the “30 feet away from the closest campus building” rule when they smoke, and this creates an unpleasant view: a cluster of smokers gathered around the buildings,  exercising their right to smoke, producing a fog of nicotine.

I find it ironic that smokers believe they have a “de facto right” to burn paper and tobacco in the campus. I might just as well claim that I have a right to light small camp fires around the campus as long as I do not irritate passersby by my smoke.

Their “right” is merely a historical oddity and it is not to be regarded constitutional or fundamental. Remembering that not so long ago, smoking was even allowed in public buses (an unfathomable thing to imagine these days), I guess that in the future our children will look back and ridicule this very right.

Smoking is unhealthy, polluting and addictive. Perhaps the ban will even cause some smokers to finally quit or prevent some from starting, producing fruitful byproducts.

Kerem Yunus Camsari

Graduate student