Letters

Smoking kills, pollutes air

I would like to address some minor issues related to Joy M.
Faulkner’s article on smoking (“Society’s
tobacco regulations pose larger threat to personal
liberties,” Viewpoint 8/7). She eloquently defended the
smoker’s right to smoke in public accommodations by arguing
that our current laws are constraining the smoker’s freedom
and right to smoke. We should all be concerned whenever we find our
personal liberties being restricted. Therefore, when any
legislation is enacted that limits our personal freedom, it should
only be enacted to provide what is most just for society.

I contend that the ban on smoking in public accommodations is
justly enacted. It is argued that second-hand smoke kills. In
Faulkner’s article, she claims such arguments are flawed.
Although no sources were provided for such claims, I am sure she
did her research well. Even if second-hand smoke doesn’t kill
in most cases shouldn’t we still protect the minority who are
exposed to a profuse amount of smoke? For an extreme case,
let’s assume I work forty hours a week in a bar packed with
smokers. To deny that such long-term exposure to this amount of
smoke doesn’t affect my health is laughable. Shouldn’t
I have the right to clean air just as smokers have the right to
pollute their own?

Faulkner encourages smokers to unite and fight anti-smoking
legislation. However, she fails to realize that smokers enjoy this
law just as much as nonsmokers. This is especially true for the
servers, bartenders and the like who have had to work in a smoking
environment. Speaking from experience, those with whom I have
worked have enjoyed the law which provides clean air and a more
healthy environment. Most of the people with whom I work happen to
be smokers and they do not mind stepping outside to smoke a
cigarette ““ why should anybody else?

It is true that this legislation limits the personal freedom of
smokers by not allowing them to smoke in confined areas where the
smoke lingers in the lungs of all and sticks to the hair, clothes
and pores of everybody within that confined area. Yet, it infringes
on my personal freedom to inhale clean air. I am sorry that smokers
are sometimes treated as second-class citizens for being addicted
to a chemical, or for just enjoying one of life’s little
pleasures. I do not pretend to know the political reasons as to why
this law was enacted. Perhaps it was done in malice to spite
smokers.

The bottom line, however, is that this is a just law rightly
enacted. True, it protects the anti-smokers. More importantly, it
protects and provides a clean environment to those of us who work
in the service industry ““ smokers and nonsmokers alike. It
protects me, my co-workers and society in general by allowing us
our freedom of clean air. What could be more just than that?

Tamie Sedberry
Fourth-year
Political Science