Smoke-free poll a tyranny by the unrepresentative minority

Editor,

I will surely be thought an old fogey because I received my graduate degrees at UNM more than 20 years ago, but it still seems appropriate that at least someone at this newspaper would have an elementary understanding of statistics and the like.

The "UNM sets smoke-free date" story mentioned in passing that the poll of interested persons on campus received fewer than 360 responses. That is not even a "tyranny of the majority" but rather a "tyranny by the ridiculously unrepresentative minority." Given a count of just the students on campus (never mind the staff and faculty, which seems to be the usual approach of this administration), the number of responses does not even constitute a statistically valid sampling of the know-it-all busybodies who think they should tell everyone else what to do.

When I began law school in 1985, smoking was not only allowed throughout the building, including in libraries and exams, but the forum's tables were essentially giant ashtrays. By my third year, smoking was banned on one floor of the library. A well-respected member of the administration had survived a cancer episode and campaigned diligently to limit smoking at the school. Likewise, the medical school and hospital's choice to go smoke-free has separate legitimacy. But if the current busybody approach proceeds to eliminate all receptacles in which a smoker could put out a smoke, you virtually guarantee there will not only be many violations of your rule, but also a great deal more litter in inappropriate places.

Perhaps some reasonableness could be combined with adult discourse? Nah, just breed contempt for rules by enacting lots of unenforceable ones.

Peter Rames

UNM alumnus