Editor,
Like it or not Joe Buffaloe, the intelligence you see in the UNM community is being used to make conscious health decisions rather than defend a killer substance on the basis of freedom.
You are right that the anti-smoking sentiment has traveled easily into the New Mexico area. On June 1, Santa Fe passed a new ordinance banning smoking in all bars and restaurants in the city. I believe I can state without much opposition that Santa Fe is a freedom-loving place.
It is common knowledge that secondhand smoke is a leading cause of cancer. When a cigarette is smoked, about one-half of the smoke generated is secondhand smoke. This form of smoke contains essentially all of the same carcinogenic and toxic agents that have been identified in the mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker but at greater levels since they do not pass through the filter.
More than 4,000 individual compounds have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are about 60 compounds that are carcinogens, tumor-initiators - substances that can result in irreversible changes in normal cells - and tumor-promoters - substances that can lead to tumor growth once cell changes begin. Some of these compounds are tar, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, phenols, ammonia, formaldehyde, benzene, nitrosamine and nicotine.
You are so deeply swimming in an ocean of facts against you that it is amazing the darkened clouds of your own exhaled smoke can blind you so easily.
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Your comment that smoke only accumulates indoors is just as preposterous. The countless receded areas in buildings, as well as the many tunnels and sheltered outdoor areas, are prime places for the buildup of secondhand smoke. Besides, even walking in a crowd across campus with a smoker nearby puffing away exposes one to countless toxic chemicals in the oxygen the rest of us breathe involuntarily.
And you hardly deserve a response to your slippery slope argument that banning smoke should lead to the banning of junk food or skateboards on campus. The smoke-free campus committee has stomped out this argument countless times. Your greasy cheeseburger with its artery-clogging ingredients will never enter my body unless I choose. If I could choose whether to breathe, secondhand smoke would not be a problem. But since this act is involuntary for all of us, I will not stop fighting for a smoke-free environment.
It is true that we all have different ways for dealing with stress and killing time. But your argument for this freedom is the same as that of the junk food. Our freedoms are only so free as they do not harm others. Smoking harms others and that is the final stand. If mass murdering people relieved stress for someone, would you defend that action on the basis that he or she deserves the freedom to relieve stress however they please?
Don't worry - we have not forgotten the enforcement issue. How exactly was smoking indoors eradicated? Are there specially hired agents to enforce smoke-free buildings? Not that I've seen. Instead, smoking indoors was made illegal, everyone was made aware of it, and soon it became the norm. The same actions will take place in the issue of outdoor smoke. This is happening right now at the smoke-free campus of Presbyterian Hospital.
Minority rights have not been forgotten. The betterment of all is the goal of a smoke-free campus despite the outcries of a few addicts. This is not an extreme movement. It is a logical one. What is extreme is allowing a few smokers to pollute the air for all despite the knowledge we have about its dangers.
Kristen Woodruff
UNM student
