At This Moment

Celia Vargas and Ashley Cohen asked students:

How do you feel about Brooklyn College's attempt to ban smoking on campus?



Brigida Pirraglia: As crazy as this sounds, I sympathize with the smokers. For those select few people who still smoke and have no intention of quitting, banning smoking on campus will be an inconvenience. Then again, it seems that every time I exit a building, there's a cloud of disgusting smoke to greet me. Thus, I think the best course of action is to designate smoking zones, preferably in areas on campus with little foot-traffic, and offer support to anyone who decides to quit.

Holly Hayes: I have no complaint....it is absolutely miserable sometimes having to walk outside and inhale that smoke...or at least, as a compromise, they should not allow smoking on the steps of buildings or directly outside the buildings

Rin Porcelet: I have a little bit of sympathy for smokers. All the non-smokers who try to say that being around cigarette smoke is so awful and oh god will give them cancer need to get a grip. Yes, second hand smoke is bad, and yes smoking kills, but so do eating greasy cheeseburgers, huffing fumes, driving a car, falling down stairs, etc. If someone could promise me that not being around cigarette smoke would give me 9001 years of life, then I'd start hating on smokers, but honestly fuck it. We all die sometime, and while I'd prefer it not be from lung cancer it could just as easily be from something lame like beestings like the kid from My Girl.

On another note, I'm similarly sick of people trying to get me to sign a hands-free car promise. Let me text and drive, and I'll at least be as much of a hazard to some innocents as a smoker, right? Maybe? Seems fair. :P

Natalie Blake: I think that’s crap. What means are they using to enforce this btw? (This is the real question)
everyone is so goddamn sensitive and have nothing better to do with their time..

Alicia Sorrenti: I was just thinking about this the other day while walking behind a smoker and desperately trying to get around them.. BAN IT! Or at least what Holly Hayes previously said, ban it directly in front of the entrance of the buildings

Oliver Lamb: Get a grip on reality: you live in New York City. Car exhaust, fumes from garbage bags, and industrial as well commercial air pollution assaults you at all times. Of course cigarette smoking shouldn't be banned on campus, it poses a negligible health hazard. Additionally, the social benefits of smoking are off the charts; the reason you see groups of smokers around campus is because smoking brings people together, even if the act is ultimately masochistic, what with all the cancer that can result from smoking habitually. Smoking is a lot less dangerous for humanity than religion in any case, but you don't see the self righteous lining up to whine about how often religious sentiments are imposed on them. And how's about all the terrible food people are eating at fast-food joints. Their patronage at McDonalds, for example, limits my access to healthier eating establishments at a lower cost because without economic support, maintaining a restaurant that provides nutritious food is inherently more expensive. There is no real rational argument to defend the limitation of smoking, especially if the most compelling evidence is that "it’s disgusting". The support for the anti-smoking community is not founded on progressive ideas about society, but merely another example of the quick fix solutions offered by the "save the people from themselves," aesthetically obsessed middle-class.

Mike Calabrese: As Natalie said, stop being such p***ies. If they ban it, I'll flaunt it... (My real response is a 10,000 word essay about positive and negative freedoms, democracy as the rule of the mob and the need of minorities to be protected, and the use of coercion to push lifestyle choices on people who should be able to make their own decisions, culminating in a rallying call to overthrow the government)

Holly Hayes: First of all, this was a serious question for a school blog, using words like "p***ies" is absolutely ridiculous, immature and unprofessional. I never said I had any issue such as "oh dear it's second hand smoke I could get cancer!" I do not care at ALL about that..The smell is disgusting when done RIGHT OUTSIDE SCHOOL BUILDINGS. Go to the middle of the quad...no smoking should not be completely banned on campus, but the spots should be changed. Furthermore all of those who use the examples of garbage and car fumes, they are not isolated to one spot. There are not garbage bags and cars parked right outside the door of school buildings, so that example is a moot point. There should be rules, but no it should not be banned completely...people have a right to smoke, I don't care, my parents are smokers. I think people make too much of a big deal about smoking...drunk drivers do not get as much slack as smokers, and it's ridiculous, but you do not have to do it right outside buildings where some people want to relax without inhaling smoke from not one, two, three, but SEVERAL, cigarettes at a time...that is all..

Oliver Lamb: I don't see why non-smokers should be given priority over people who smoke for choice relaxation spots, especially since both parties can share the space. Sometimes I am disgusted by the types of conversations I hear around me, or the aroma of over-applied perfumes, but I don't think my disgust for things should influence mandatory policy. Disgust for smoking is no different.

Kyle R: I don't care really.

Marie C: Yes! Finally no smoking on campus.

Amy P: They should just make smoking, and non-smoking sections.

Image modified from: http://www.gazette.net/images/2008_1210/smokersr121008_w_rgbb.jpg