Facts and truth empower a smoke-free campus

Ramses Delafontaine

By: Ramses Delafontaine

In a letter to the editor filled with anecdotal argumentation entitled “Pity the Stanford Smoker,” Mr. Ngai claims that a ban on outdoor smoking on campus would limit the liberty of smokers and that we should not worry as smoking is but one of many dumb things kids do.

Mr. Ngai maintains that Stanford has limited the rights of smokers to such an extent that it is now time for nonsmokers to accept that Stanford’s Luft der Freiheit will sometimes carry “something that smells a little funny.” The freedom to smoke discourse misleadingly depicts smokers as liberty-loving proponents of a free and open society, whereas health advocates are compared to authoritarian-styled bureaucrats. What is the next thing they are going to have us do, Mr. Ngai asks rhetorically, force students to sleep more, eat healthy, or drink less alcohol? No rule prohibits that you do not sleep, that you eat burgers all day, or drink alcohol. Society has chosen to limit our freedom when that behavior becomes a direct risk for others. Drunk driving is a criminal offence because it puts others at risk. By underestimating the toxic air contamination by second hand smoke Mr. Ngai downplays the aggressiveness by which smokers infringe upon the liberty and health of nonsmokers. Nonsmokers have the right to deny smokers from harming them. Second-hand smoke kills and there is no-risk free level of exposure, according to the Surgeon General Reports of 2006 and 2014. The American Cancer Association estimates that in the United States alone yearly 42,000 people die every year from diseases caused by secondhand smoke. That includes diseases such as infant death syndrome, lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases, to name but three categories. Where is the freedom of those people? I pity them.

This brings us to the second topic in Mr. Ngai’s letter: the trivialization of the health hazards of smoking. Mr. Ngai describes smoking as a hobby, an innocent yet risky relief without addressing addiction or smoking-related diseases. This two-legged stance — smoking is just a dumb thing kids do, yet with certain “risks” — is a marketing ploy to make cigarettes seem cool and sexy. All the risk is borne by the consumer and none by the manufacturer. Smokers, according to the tobacco companies’ legal argument in court, make an informed choice to start an addiction and accept all the health risks. Yet only experts fully appreciate the cigarette design’s deadly effects and that the chemically enhanced nicotine levels addict smokers after smoking as few as one hundred cigarettes. The tobacco industry constantly seeks new and young smokers to replenish the ranks of their dying customers. Internal industry documents speak of “replacement smokers.” Most smokers start smoking as kids when they are not fully knowledgeable of the dangers involved because of marketing ads and newspaper articles focused on liberty and enjoying a little head rush once in a while without mentioning addiction, disease and death. A dumb thing implies innocence of youth and the ability to fix it, smoking allows for neither.

I hope that readers will give more attention to the initial Op. Ed. on this topic of Oct. 1 by Mr. Donald Bentley on Stanford’s reluctance to follow the urging from the State of California Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee to make Stanford a smoke-free campus, like many of Stanford’s peer institutions. For there lies the true freedom of smokers and nonsmokers alike, a campus where minds and bodies are free from cigarette-induced addiction and disease and with truly free and healthy air flowing through the halls and grounds of this wonderful university.

-Ramses Isis Delafontaine

Let’s be real…

Seriously…? Yes, second hand smoke kills, however second hand smoke OUTSIDE harms almost no one. Just move away from them, we may be in a drought but there’s no shortage of air in California. I could see an argument at not smoking at bustops since it’s a designated standing place, but anywhere else, just take a few steps away. Also, if you actually go back and read his article, he doesn’t trivialize the health hazards of smoking. He understands that it’s unhealthy and even openly calls them “cancer sticks”. Just because he doesn’t cite all of the data on their complete health risks like companies are mandated to do on cartons, doesn’t mean he’s sweeping them under the rug.
Vinny Gracchus

There is no risk to others from second hand smoke outdoors (actually there is virtually none indoors either. Third-hand smoke is a myth. Outdoor smoking bans are designed to denormalize smoking and not about risks from second hand smoke. As a reminder see: Bayer, R. and Bachynski KE, “Banning Smoking In Parks And On Beaches: Science, Policy, And The Politics Of Denormalization,” Health Aff, July 2013 Vol. 32, no. 7, 1291-1298. The abstract from that paper reads:

“Campaigns to limit tobacco use started in the 1970s and have led to bans on public smoking, which have been extended to parks and beaches. A review of state and local statutes shows that during 1993–2011, smoking was banned in 843 parks and on 150 beaches across the United States. Three justifications for these restrictions have been invoked: the risk of passive smoke to nonsmokers, the pollution caused by cigarette butts, and the long-term risks to children from seeing smoking in public. Our analysis of the evidence for these claims found it far from definitive and in some cases weak.”
sharonsgames

Having lived in California (the state in the U.S. with the lowest proportion of smokers), I never realized the freedom I felt to go outside and be able to breathe in fresh air. As a current freshman at a university on the East Coast, I can say that I am incredibly annoyed by the the smoke that lingers in the air, the cigarette butts that are thrown onto the ground, and the constant reminders of my relatives who have passed away and are suffering from lung cancer because of their old smoking habits, even though all but one have quit smoking after having other relatives pass away.

I am grateful that Stanford is a smoke-free campus, and I hope that my school will someday also be one.

Anyway, I have been looking up ways that smoking is beneficial to a person’s health to calm myself down. There are some, but websites that list benefits say that they are largely outweighed by the detrimental effects. It would be best for all of us to quit smoking and those extrinsically hoping for others to keep on smoking to change their goals.