The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

TO THE EDITOR:

 

I did not know whether to laugh or cringe at Justin Crowder’s assertion that the University’s Tobacco-Free Campus Policy is discriminatory toward LGBT students. (‘Campus Smoking Policy Discriminatory to Gays,’ Aug. 26)

 

Crowder seems to fail to identify that tobacco is a drug. A legal drug, yes, but still a drug — and one that is the single most preventable cause of death, disease and disability in the United States. Tobacco kills more Americans than does AIDS, alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, and suicides, combined!

 

If the University was not protecting its students from such a verifiable killer, would it not then be guilty of dismissing student safety?

 

And congratulations, Mr. Crowder, for finding a study that suits your ridiculous attempt at victimization. I can cite another one, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavior Risk Management Survey, which found that illegal drug use is higher among African Americans and other minorities than among Caucasian Americans. Would you want us to believe then that illegal drugs should be legal because they are a “delicate piece of the quilt that makes up” minorities in this country?

 

Smoking, unlike being LGBT, is a choice, and it’s one you can choose to stop before its too late.

 


Gia Branciforte
UNC ‘08

 

 

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