Letters to the editor
Issue date: 11/5/08 Section: Opinion
UA tobacco ban is unenforceable
In previous issues, there have been students complaining about how the "smoking ban" on campus isn't working and needs to be enforced.
I find this hilarious.
Firstly, I agree the smoking ban has not worked, and it's because nobody except some UA bureaucrats and a few others who simply can't seem to mind their own business shoved it down our throats with no plan other than a Web site and removing all the ashtrays on campus.
Brilliant, guys. Way to go. Now the smokers just throw their butts on the ground! That is going to make the campus "fresher"!
So now that this ill-concieved plan hasn't worked, people are demanding enforcement. So I'd like to ask these people, who is going to enforce this? Are we going to divert the UA Police Department away from investigating real crimes on campus to slapping cigerettes out of peoples' hands?
Seems like not too long ago everyone was clammering about all the rapes occuring on campus. Isn't that more important? Maybe we should have a cigerette secret police force that hides outside of RZ's and launches into action when a cigerette smoker steps outside to satiate their nicotene craving: "No, no, no! That is bad for you! Here is a $50 ticket."
Before we create another entity on campus that doles out huge citations to our cash-strapped student body and staff, let's at least be a little rational.
Can any of you who support the smoking ban give a realistic quantifiable health risk to secondhand smoke inhalation by a nonsmoker in an open outdoor space?
If so, is this anywhere near the risk of the carbon monoxide inhalation that occurs by walking next to a line of idling cars?
If we let them get away with nannying us, mark my words: there will be a dress code on campus within a few years because of the health risks of bright colors.
Stuart Feild
Service assistant III
University IT Services
KXUA station manager
In previous issues, there have been students complaining about how the "smoking ban" on campus isn't working and needs to be enforced.
I find this hilarious.
Firstly, I agree the smoking ban has not worked, and it's because nobody except some UA bureaucrats and a few others who simply can't seem to mind their own business shoved it down our throats with no plan other than a Web site and removing all the ashtrays on campus.
Brilliant, guys. Way to go. Now the smokers just throw their butts on the ground! That is going to make the campus "fresher"!
So now that this ill-concieved plan hasn't worked, people are demanding enforcement. So I'd like to ask these people, who is going to enforce this? Are we going to divert the UA Police Department away from investigating real crimes on campus to slapping cigerettes out of peoples' hands?
Seems like not too long ago everyone was clammering about all the rapes occuring on campus. Isn't that more important? Maybe we should have a cigerette secret police force that hides outside of RZ's and launches into action when a cigerette smoker steps outside to satiate their nicotene craving: "No, no, no! That is bad for you! Here is a $50 ticket."
Before we create another entity on campus that doles out huge citations to our cash-strapped student body and staff, let's at least be a little rational.
Can any of you who support the smoking ban give a realistic quantifiable health risk to secondhand smoke inhalation by a nonsmoker in an open outdoor space?
If so, is this anywhere near the risk of the carbon monoxide inhalation that occurs by walking next to a line of idling cars?
If we let them get away with nannying us, mark my words: there will be a dress code on campus within a few years because of the health risks of bright colors.
Stuart Feild
Service assistant III
University IT Services
KXUA station manager
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