I was wondering when this would happen.
Taking away student rights in the name of “progress” has never really been my jam. It is with this in mind that I say WHAT. THE. HELL. ASS. AMELIE.
President Rousseau is gearing up to back the Smoke Free Task Force in attempting to make campus smoke-free. This is not news. But now, with an article in the Ol’ Dirty, she has made it news again.
ASUO President Amelie Rousseau is pushing for a smoke-free campus and has joined the University’s Smoke Free Task Force to start gathering support.
The task force, a group of mainly University faculty created in the 2007-08 school year, surveyed students, faculty and staff in April 2008 and found support from 75 percent of its 4,769 participants.
…
Rousseau said a major component of a potential smoking ban would be preventing second-hand smoke on campus.
“It’s about protecting students and staff from second-hand smoke, because our campus is a workplace, and people do have to travel between buildings and are exposed to second-hand smoke,” she said.
She also referenced the Smoke Free Task Force survey that said 3,576 of 4,769 University respondents, 75 percent, were “occasionally or often bothered by second-hand smoke on campus.”
So, according to the Daily Emerald, everyone who is occasionally or often bothered by second-hand smoke on campus supports making the space smoke-free. That seems like putting the cart before the horse a little, no?
Unfortunately for students at the University of Oregon, this is how our ASUO is operating right now. The folks in that office make absurd claims and leaps of logic to prove their point over and over, and I am starting to get sick of it. Just because students are frustrated by second-hand smoke does not necessarily mean they want to start taking away the rights of students. This is a slippery slope.
But students who smoke on campus say a major part of it is the convenience of a cigarette after class.
“After class, it’s really nice to just be able to walk out the door and smoke a cigarette and then walk out to the bus or something,” University freshman Ben Danner said.
Rousseau hopes a cigarette ban on campus would make this habit a chore, which would in turn discourage smokers.
“We want to make it easier for people to live healthy lives,” Rousseau said. “We want UO to be a healthy community, and that starts with being tobacco-free.”
Let’s tackle the health issue here for a minute. Our student union has a contract with the fast food company, Panda Express. Panda Express serves many meals every day. Through some quick and unscientific observation, the most commonly ordered item is a two-entree plate with Orange Chicken, Beijing Beef, and a side of Chow Mein. According to the Panda Express website, the nutrition breakdown of these items is as follows:
In the interest of not making you take out your calculator, that’s a total of 1,650 calories, 82g of fat, and 2,820mg of sodium. That is a lot. I am not suggesting that the EMU take Panda Express out of the building. I am suggesting that we allow students to make their own choices about their health on campus. Nowhere on the UO campus are cigarettes sold.
Additionally, there are designated “smoking stations” located more than 10 feet away from the entrances to buildings. People smoking by the door and under breezeways are a problem, but there is no entity on campus enforcing the current rules. I think it’s a little quick to say we need a smoke-free campus, when the intermediary steps are not being taken. Even designated smoking areas is a better idea. Overarching University-wide rule changes should be well thought out and the student government and other interested groups should take an interest in process and talking to students.
Beyond all this, I understand the desire to make campus smoke-free. But Amélie claims to want to eliminate student smoking altogether. Rousseau said she wants people to stop smoking because of what a chore it is to walk off campus. Nowhere does she address the safety issue, which I brought up in the Back to the Booze issue of the Oregon Commentator. To ban smoking on campus is to push smoking students off campus and out of Department of Public Safety jurisdiction. While the ASUO is continuing to fund a 24-hour Knight Library, it doesn’t seem entirely in the student interest to make us leave campus to smoke and subsequently put us in the path of the 3AM riff raff of the West University neighborhood. Assaults happen in the areas directly adjacent to campus a lot more often than they do on campus.
Just because you make us move, doesn’t mean you’re going to make us quit. No member of the student body — elected or not — should be able to tell another member of the student body not to exercise their rights. You won an election. You are not my mother.
A friend of mine made another point — if students are forced off campus to smoke, won’t students entering campus be faced with a lot more second-hand smoke in a lot more of a concentrated area? I guess Rousseau doesn’t care about that, because it’s not on campus. It is, however, a legitimate concern.
There is a lot to consider here. Think about it, and do some research. And pay attention for an announcement about a smoke-in happening soon. For the final word, I’m going to turn it over to President Bartlet and the championship status of Aaron Sorkin:
Can’t compare fast food to smoking…no secondhand effects to obesity. What are YOU smoking?
If we’re going to call outdoor, second-hand smoke dangerous we might as well get on a proposal to ban sidewalks from being within 10ft of a road-way. That exhaust can’t be good.
I fell down a slippery slope once. Since then, the argument has made a lot more sense to me.
West Wing 4 Life
http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/TobaccoCancer/secondhand-smoke
First, I wonder what Amelie’s namesake, the “great liberal” Jean Jacques Rousseau, would say about this matter. Second, is secondhand smoke as unhealthy as firsthand? I’ve always thought not. How could it be? Third, I do not smoke. But I defend the right of those who do. One of my friends is a chain smoker who always asks me if he can light up, even in his home. I always say, “go for it.” It irritates me a bit, but I put up with it. I smell it on my teeshirt when I get home. I just peel off the tee and proceed with the rest of my day or night.
Seems the pretty-faced Amelie is making a political issue of this matter. The inconvenience suffered by smokers who must go off campus to smoke outweighs any health hazard to any non-smoking student, unless it can be proven that secondhand smoke IS as dangerous as the smoke-free task force totalitarians say it is.
Three things:
1) I completely agree with Ms. Diamond. There is already a unenforced system in place. Instead of outright BANNING smoking from campus, how about Rousseau starts a campaign to educate the University of Oregon community on the dangers of smoking? We are all supposed to be adults, are we not? Let’s be given the chance to make up our own mind about smoking, and not have a tobacco prohibition. Second-hand smoke in the out-of-doors does not pose a significant health threat to those in proximity unless it is sustained and prolonged exposure. Inhaling someone else’s cigarette smoke outside when you are a non-smoker is more of a nuisance than a health risk. It is more of a health risk for me to run down a flight of stairs.
Besides, I know without a shadow of a doubt that on a campus of over 22,000 students (source: http://admissions.uoregon.edu/profile.html), there is no fucking way a campus-wide ban on smoking would work. It would be overhaul on public safety to enforce the ban. Especially with so many young smokers living on campus. Like I said, we are adults here. We should be able to make our own decisions about smoking. Inhaling second hand smoke outdoors is just annoying and you cannot tell me that justifies a ban on smoking. I am severely asthmatic and am allergic to cigarette smoke, and when I get caught behind someone walking in front of me smoking a cigarette, I walk ahead of them or a little farther away. No big deal. Seriously.
2) “The task force, a group of mainly University faculty created in the 2007-08 school year, surveyed students, faculty and staff in April 2008 and found support from 75 percent of its 4,769 participants.”
Um, are you serious? 75% of 4,769 participants on a campus of 22,000+ students?! That is SUCH a stupid-low number. Wowzers.
3) To me it is not a debate about who can puff up their chest and say they are right louder than the other guy. It is about basic American rights and respecting the fact that the ASUO represents a comparatively small part of campus (based on their # of votes). BANNING cigarettes on campus is forcing the opinion of a small group of power-hungry college kids on tens of thousands of people who should be able to make up their own mind without “the tree-bomb society” telling them what they can and can’t do.
Has anyone checked to see how much money the university will get from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for passing a smoke free law. RWJF is the non profit foundation that owns millions of shares of Johnson & Johnson drug company. J&J sells government billions of dollars in nicotine replacement drugs. These drugs have a 98.4% failure rate, but don’t let that get in the way of government social engineering and wasteful spending.
Nest up on the socialist agenda – soda and sugar based drinks of all kinds. J&J also owns Splenda. Getting the connection yet?
It is not about health, it is about a big drug companies profits and control of personal freedom and liberty in the name of profits.
I think the difference between unhealthy food and smoking is: YOU choose to eat unhealthy food and that decision does not effect me. YOU choose to smoke and your second hand smoke does effect me. You may exercise your right to smoke…but only if you can guarantee my not having to go out of my way to exercize my right NOT to breathe your smoke.
Honestly, the easy solution is to do what Lewis and Clark (and a number of other Universities) is doing and set up designated on-campus smoking areas. This provides an outlet for smoking students and a way to not be ambushed outside of Classroom Building X with 5 to 10 smokers exhaling as one is leaving the building.
Now, having said all that…one can choose to partake or hang out with said smokers if they choose…but that should be their choice…not one that is thrusted upon them by the smoker.
how? slippery slope entails leaps of logic. one thing will lead to the next, will lead to the next, will lead to the next, and onward to extinction ; )
the absurd claim is saying that it is a slippery slope without any warrants or articulation what so ever.
I think a slippery slope argument is a little different. I didn’t say anything was going to happen, I’m just pointing out the danger.
“absurd claims and leaps of logic to prove their point over and over”
such as slippery slope arguments?
: P
[…] Diamond is the editor of the Oregon Commentator and a student at the University of Oregon. She is a member of the Student Free Press […]
Funny. I was saying the exact same thing as your headline earlier this morning.