Anti-Smoking Sentiment

By Feliz Moreno

I honestly see nothing wrong with our education systems implementing a rule that discourages young people from polluting their lungs before they can even legally rent a car. The effects of smoking are well known and California has some of the most strict smoking laws of any of the 50 states.

The UC system has decided to further restrict smokers and recently proposed a ban on smoking on campus.

Considering only 12 percent of California's adult population smokes according to Mercury News—six percent less than the overall national average—it's a surprise that a ban like this wasn't implemented earlier.

It could be argued that it is a matter of civil liberty and that all people have the right to destroy their lungs anywhere they choose. But smoking has already been outlawed in most public places. Besides places like casinos, where bad habits are already being bred anyway, smoking is hardly ever allowed in indoor public places.

Furthermore, laws restricting smokers are implemented to save the lungs of those of us who choose not to take up smoking, not smokers themselves.

Almost all of us have seen the advertisements that tell us how harmful second-hand smoke is, and I think it is safe to say that they have worked, considering that smoking rates in our generation are lower than in previous generations. Many people I know are so wary of second hand smoke that they have a tendency of holding their breath when they pass by a person smoking.

If aversion to smoking is that pronounced, then I think it is fair to pass a law that protects the majority of the population from harmful second-hand smoke.

Yes, adults do have the freedom to give themselves lung cancer, but they do not have the right to impose lung cancer on the rest of us.

While smokers are already supposedly limited to the areas on campus that permit smoking — such as 25 feet away from any building — I have yet to see someone smoke on campus and actually follow that rule. If you can't be mindful of the rules that try to find compromise, then banning smoking altogether seems like a reasonable decision. If you act like someone who can't responsibly follow laws then you will be treated as such.

And while some people may argue that the UC system goes too far in banning all tobacco products — including chewing tobacco — I believe it to be perfectly reasonable. Chewing tobacco is an even more vile habit than smoking, especially since it involves spitting and gives you cancer of the mouth.

I wasn't aware that chewing tobacco was so fashionable that those who indulge in the habit were ready to take to the streets in mass numbers if they didn't get to chew on university campuses.

It has nothing to do with civil liberties and everything to do with the research conveyed in Medical News Today that "shows that hardly anyone starts smoking after their mid twenties, and those that quit before they are thirty are unlikely to ever start again."

It has everything to do with the fact that 586 college campuses have already declared themselves smoke-free and our generation should be proud to be setting this precedent.

At the very least, I would hope that those of you smokers out there would save yourselves some money if we implemented an anti-smoking policy. A law that saves people a few bucks can't be all that bad.

Feliz Moreno is a sophomore English major and editor of the Opinion section.