Dear University of Kentucky Students, Staff, and Vistors:
RE: Your status as a competent, independent adult
This letter is to inform you that in light of recently enacted policies you will soon be treated as children. UK has decided that you are not capable of exercising your rights as a free-thinking, independent, and responsible person. Henceforth, you are not allowed to use tobacco on the university campus. You read that correctly. You cannot use tobacco at all. Anywhere.
Do not be alarmed. This is as far as it goes. This power will never be used to impose further sanctions on your freedoms as adult citizens.
Signs have been posted around campus to remind you that UK is tobacco free and it is now a "healthy place to live, work, and learn." Pay no attention to the underlying implications in the message.
Students, staff, and visitors - you are adults but you are not to be trusted with tobacco.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Your babysitter and nanny,
RE: Your status as a competent, independent adult
This letter is to inform you that in light of recently enacted policies you will soon be treated as children. UK has decided that you are not capable of exercising your rights as a free-thinking, independent, and responsible person. Henceforth, you are not allowed to use tobacco on the university campus. You read that correctly. You cannot use tobacco at all. Anywhere.
Do not be alarmed. This is as far as it goes. This power will never be used to impose further sanctions on your freedoms as adult citizens.
Signs have been posted around campus to remind you that UK is tobacco free and it is now a "healthy place to live, work, and learn." Pay no attention to the underlying implications in the message.
Students, staff, and visitors - you are adults but you are not to be trusted with tobacco.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Your babysitter and nanny,
University and Government Bureaucrats
11 comments:
By this logic, I suppose we shouldn't have drinking and driving laws either? Drinking is legal, so one should be allowed to drink as they drive around, right? Secondhand smoke is harmful and nonsmokers shouldn't have to be subjected to it at work or school.
further, we should be allowed to smoke everywhere including hospitals, churches, and high schools (so long as the adult citizen is of age). Give me liberty or give me death.
Yours,
Frrrrreeeddddoooom Machine
Anon 3:02
Secondhand smoke is harmful. Agreed. However banning all tobacco on campus is excessive and an abuse of power. Is smokeless tobacco harming anyone else? Is smoking in your car harming someone else?
Its not just a smoking ban. It is a tobacco ban. Please read up before you try to simplify anyone's logic.
it's funny you toss out two impossible-to-police examples as a reason to blanket-frame the entire thing as some sort of neo-fascist assault on human rights. this will be hard enough to police as is: nobody cares about dippers and car smokers.
ignoring your diversionary examples for a moment, does it not strike you that ban on tobacco is - aside from an iron-fisted policing maneuver - a symbolic gesture? one which says - and i think this is backed up with heaps of data - smoking is bad. period. i mean, smoking was normalized via institutional neglect so why does it seem absurd that this might be reversed via institutional mandates?
seriously, man. tobacco use is an enormous historical accident. aside from US foreign policy (1950-present) and the destruction of light urban railways in the 1920's, i can think of few which compare.
that said - and assuming you agree - why would you possibly think it a good idea to argue for public tobacco use in the context of rights? and why - please tell me - are people using this as a proxy for a discourse on government encroachment when most of those people supported the Patriot Act?
seriously? wtf?
Tissue,
Thanks for you response and thoughts.
Impossible to police is a good point. The ban as a whole is nearly impossible to enforce. And as to who cares about "dippers and car smokers", well I suppose people who dip and smoke in their car care now that they are told they can't.
And yes, I do agree with you that the ban is symbolic. Smoking is proven to be unhealthy. You won't find me disagreeing with you there. However, who are you to tell someone they can't do that? That's a personal decision that needs to be made individuals. Its symbolic of reducing personal freedom. Lots of habits are unhealthy so I would ask you, at what point do we stop? Where is line? What else should we ban because its not healthy? Oil? Cell phones? Soft Drinks?
I think comparing tobacco use to U.S. foreign policy is a bit dramatic.
The Patriot Act is a huge infringement on personal freedom and I am opposed to it. This isn't a proxy debate. You miss the point. I am not arguing for public tobacco use. I am arguing for the right. There is a difference.
while i think US foreign policy is worse, smoking has killed over a billion people this century (all of whom would be dead anyhow :)). but if we gauge these things in terms of human suffering i think it would be pretty close.
as far as your question regarding the location of the "line". the slope slides both ways.
the State can mandate traffic laws for public safety yet they cannot do the same for tobacco use? how do we legislate anything if our guiding principle is "rights"?
further, the right to decide whether to use tobacco (or eat crap) is not happening in a void. there are powerful capital interests which make those rights seem palatable despite their well-known harmful effects. advertising, after all, isn't just for fun. the modern rational actor is a product of a hyper-visual hyper-capitalized 21st century.
are the addition 'no smoking' signs into that milieu really that big of an affront to your notion of rights?
the key point is that "i" do not decide whether or not smoking is right or wrong. neither do you. i can smoke or not smoke. on campus or in a hospital. at worst i'll be asked to put it out or leave. but in terms of setting guidelines for society, we have - for better or worse - given the State license to craft rules for the public good. it's not about personal rights. it is about what is best for all of us. who gets to decide? not us.
you have the right to be told what you can and cannot do, and until we stage a total strike it is the State sets those limits.*
*it should be noted, however, there is no outside to these sorts of limit relations. there is no really real freedom.
Enormous historical accident??? So was the smallpox vaccination, xrays and teflon. Where would we be without teflon. And where would I be without the right to walk out of an excruciating exam and light one up. Last I checked I was given the right to the pursuit of happiness, pulling a cigarette out of the pack is the pursuit and inhaling that nicotine is happiness.
If tobacco is a threat to everyone. Make it illegal.
If tobacco is not illegal, then these actions are an infringement upon individual freedoms.
Let the legislators act for the entire state or let freedom prevail.
anon 1: heroin.
anon 2: open container.
...
Tissue, Heroine is illegal. Open container is illegal. The last I checked, tobacco was still legal. If it's so aweful-horrible-scary-monster-ish then you shouldn't be wasting your time writing on this blog, but passing around petitions to get a ban on tobacco products on the ballot and passed. In this case, we have a university acting outside the law to ban a LEGAL--organically grown in Kentucky--product.
Secondhand smoke is harmful, but individuals smoking outside subject others to insignificant amounts of secondhand smoke. This is banning something that does not cause behavior that is dangerous to others like the examples given in comments supporting the ban.
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