Smoking ban produces more nuisances not less

TO THE EDITOR:

Tuesday's feature on smoking failed to assess the effectiveness on the campuswide smoking ban. While much attention has been devoted to civil liberties aspect of the ban few seem to have noticed how it has failed to achieve its goals of reducing smoking and secondhand smoke at UNC.

The administration implemented the ban to help the campus community avoid the adverse effects of secondhand smoke. Instead I find that I get to enjoy more secondhand smoke than ever before. Rather than occasionally walking behind a single smoker I now get to pass through a cloud of cigarette smoke every time I walk through the quad. The essence of stale cigarette smoke is more prevalent since the ban in many of my classes because smokers now carry the odors of 50 other smokers rather than simply their own.

The ban also fails in its efforts to improve the health of smokers. They now get large amounts of secondhand smoke in addition to their own cigarettes likely causing more detriments to their health. And since as the DTH reported the flagpole has now become some sort of intellectual social club smokers are far less likely to want to quit.

Not to mention the impression visitors to our campus get from seeing so many smokers on display in the center of campus. They probably think all Carolina students and faculty members are chain smokers.

Chancellor Thorp if you must ban smoking on campus at least make it somewhat less ridiculous by instituting designated smoking areas in convenient out-of-the-way locations.



Colin Campbell

Senior

Journalism