Disclaimer: Smoking is bad. If you do it too much, you will probably die younger than you wish to die. Smoking increases the risk of developing a wide variety of cancers, heart disease and/or a host of respiratory problems. Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth and low birth rate. In short, don’t smoke.
Campus Council voted last Thursday to continue the ghettoization of Duke smokers. The council resolved in a 9-8 vote to support a smoking ban throughout residential areas of East and West campuses. Fortunately for smokers and the concept of individual liberty, Campus Council has no real authority, so its resolution must go to Duke administrators for approval.
There is a chance that the administration will not support the blanket residential smoking ban. Thus, in order to ensure that they successfully get smokers’ butts out of their faces, Campus Council also passed a backup resolution 9-5 to do essentially the same thing as the first resolution (did the three dissenters from the first resolution leave for a smoking break?). This one bans smoking within 25 feet of all dorms and on all walkways that are parallel to and within 50 feet of dorms. Very tricky.
Why did they pass these resolutions? Is it that they wanted to make Duke students stop smoking by playing doctor, mommy and daddy all at the same time? No. As Campus Council President Stephen Temple explained to The Chronicle last week, “Campus Council is not trying to reduce smoking on campus.”
So if Campus Council’s objective is not to save smokers from themselves, we must ask again: Why have they passed these resolutions? According to Temple, the council simply wanted to represent popular student opinion on the issue. In that, it most likely succeeded.
Smoking, smoke and smokers are not popular—at Duke and increasingly across the United States. In Chicago for instance, a city ordinance prohibits smoking in restaurants, bars and other indoor public places. Taken at face value, this ban seems reasonable. In practice, however, this law goes too far. For example, in 2008 the popular musical “Jersey Boys” was forced to modify its Chicago production to comply with the smoking ban. This meant a lack of cigarettes, regular or herbal, and consequently a lack of fidelity to the script and the true story that inspired the musical. A bit unnecessary, I think you would agree.
Even overseas, smoking has become so unpopular that it is now illegal in what formerly were the smokiest places on earth: pubs in Dublin and cafés in Paris. Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre would be up in arms to hear of such developments. That is, they would be up in arms if they had not already died from smoking-related illnesses.
Because everyone hates smoke, Campus Council thought it prudent to just band the moral majority together and drive smokers into the sea. Not so fast, angry mob. Campus Council forgot to ask themselves truthfully if this smoking ban is necessary before they resolved to limit Duke smokers’ ability to engage in a legal activity—especially a legal activity that made James B. Duke rich, and subsequently helped build this University.
Is the Campus Council advocating a smoking ban in order to protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke? That is certainly a valid goal, but a blanket ban on smoking outdoors in the vicinity of dorms on East and West is over the top. Ban smoking inside the dorm? Sure, that is an enclosed space. Ban smoking in archways? OK, I can understand that, the archways are semi-enclosed. Ban smoking in the open air? That is nothing more than tyranny of the majority.
Passing a smoker on a sidewalk for one or two seconds is at its worst a minor annoyance, and a minor annoyance is not enough to prevent people from doing what they want, where they want. I learned that when I tried to ban Dragon Gate from my dorm because of its noxious smell. If you find a person smoking in the open air by the place you live to be a personal affront to your general well-being, then, sorry I’m not sorry, but just walk around or walk faster.
Smokers already are outside, and that is where smoking bans should end. There is no rational purpose for casting them out of society. Hopefully, the administration recognizes this and comes to the defense of an unpopular and unhealthy habit in the name of individual liberty.
Jordan Rice is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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