Fuming Student

Fuming Student Lets Sparks Fly

Ashley Cook, get over it!
You talk of rights to breathe air and smoke tobacco. At the same time, you deny smokers the right to assemble. You talk about a generation focused on health. You fail to realize that this generation the highest rate of obesity in history. The idea of nondiscrimination must apply to everybody except smokers.
I agree that is a good idea to have non-smoking buildings. The smoke gets contained in the rooms and fills your lungs, clothes, and eyes. Since I am allergic to smoke, it bothers me more than most. However, I think it has gone a little too far when you deny smokers the last refuge outside of their homes: the great outdoors?
I do not know if you have been to Lambert International Airport lately, but you should see the way they treat smokers there, and they are customers! They lock them up in a room that is at most 15' by 15'. They suck the air out of the top of the room to keep it from billowing out every time somebody leaves. Guess where the air goes? Right outside to join all the other smoke from the smokers outside! At O'Hare, you cannot even smoke outside at the pickup terminal! Too much!
There is plenty of air to go around. Admittedly, not all of it is clean, but there is still plenty of air. I am sure the car you drive to school puts out in one day more pollution than the average smoker puts out his whole life! So now, I guess that we should cage up all the cars and make them drive in small little areas where they can pollute all they want. Yeah, right!
Ever suppose why the factories are spaced so far apart and surrounded by plant life? If you clump pollutants together, you end up with pollution so dense it destroys the environment. If you space out the pollution, you give the environment a chance to recover and possibly save itself. This is a good thing, since we seem to be inept at saving Mother Nature.
As far as the "other unpleasant side effect to the numerous student smokers," I have seen the workers here at UMSL walk right by a veritable forest of butts to pick up a scrap of paper. Yes, the smokers should use the appropriate receptacles for cigarette butts. Yes, there is a lot of trash piling up in between all of the buildings. Yes, we need to do something about it. Instead of blaming somebody for causing the problem, we should be searching of some way to solve the problem.
For the record, I do not smoke. My whole family smokes, most of my friends smoke, almost all of my coworkers smoke. I guess I should invest in a cage for all of them so that I can breathe freely. -Barry W. Colebank Jr.