Smoking vultures loiter around campus
James Weime
Issue date: 9/28/98 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
I know what it's like to be a smoker. I did it for a number of years. I was lucky enough, though, to quit before the push to kill the tobacco industry.
Today it's really getting tough on smokers. No more smoking in public buildings and you have to show an ID just to get cigarettes at the local grocery.
People resent you for polluting their air and you are put into yet another restrictive category. Well, I'm going to put you in one more - the nuisance category.
I have to admit I never noticed smokers until this new law prohibiting smoking in public places. Before this law, people just lit up whenever they wanted and you either liked it or lumped it. Today it is a whole different story.
Now we have special places for these societal rejects. At WIU, it's the area right in front of every door into every building on campus.
So you're walking along in the nice clean air heading to class. As you approach your building, you notice a crowd formed up around the doors. You wonder what's going on. Could it be that someone is hurt, or maybe some form of controversy has stirred people up? Nope. It's just the smokers having one last toke before they have to endure an hour of free breathing.
Like a group of vultures, they are huddled together around the buckets containing the dead memories of past ecstasy. They eye you suspiciously as you walk past. You notice the impish grins on their faces as the smell of smoke hits you while you walk through the cloud around the door.
When you get through to the other side you try to put the memory of it behind you. Only you can't, because the smokers have now left their mark on you for the rest of the day. Now you smell like the cloud of smoke around the door, and every time you turn your head the memories come back to haunt you. Because the air is so clean everywhere else, you can't avoid the evidence. It's in your freshly-washed hair and clothes. It gets in your skin and corrupts even the best perfumes and colognes and turns them into adulterated versions of what they once were. It's in your nostrils and in your lungs and now you understand what all the fuss was about.
But what about the freedom of choice? What about the smokers' right to do as they damn well please?
I'll tell you this. I believe in the right of smokers to kill themselves in any way they want, but do they have to do it in packs right in front of all the entrances? I realize this is not just the fault of those who choose to smoke. The university administration has chosen to put the sand buckets right in front of the doors so you feel as though you have little choice.
What is to be done? I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: I'm glad I don't smoke anymore.
Today it's really getting tough on smokers. No more smoking in public buildings and you have to show an ID just to get cigarettes at the local grocery.
People resent you for polluting their air and you are put into yet another restrictive category. Well, I'm going to put you in one more - the nuisance category.
I have to admit I never noticed smokers until this new law prohibiting smoking in public places. Before this law, people just lit up whenever they wanted and you either liked it or lumped it. Today it is a whole different story.
Now we have special places for these societal rejects. At WIU, it's the area right in front of every door into every building on campus.
So you're walking along in the nice clean air heading to class. As you approach your building, you notice a crowd formed up around the doors. You wonder what's going on. Could it be that someone is hurt, or maybe some form of controversy has stirred people up? Nope. It's just the smokers having one last toke before they have to endure an hour of free breathing.
Like a group of vultures, they are huddled together around the buckets containing the dead memories of past ecstasy. They eye you suspiciously as you walk past. You notice the impish grins on their faces as the smell of smoke hits you while you walk through the cloud around the door.
When you get through to the other side you try to put the memory of it behind you. Only you can't, because the smokers have now left their mark on you for the rest of the day. Now you smell like the cloud of smoke around the door, and every time you turn your head the memories come back to haunt you. Because the air is so clean everywhere else, you can't avoid the evidence. It's in your freshly-washed hair and clothes. It gets in your skin and corrupts even the best perfumes and colognes and turns them into adulterated versions of what they once were. It's in your nostrils and in your lungs and now you understand what all the fuss was about.
But what about the freedom of choice? What about the smokers' right to do as they damn well please?
I'll tell you this. I believe in the right of smokers to kill themselves in any way they want, but do they have to do it in packs right in front of all the entrances? I realize this is not just the fault of those who choose to smoke. The university administration has chosen to put the sand buckets right in front of the doors so you feel as though you have little choice.
What is to be done? I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: I'm glad I don't smoke anymore.