CUNY Bans Smoking

Count the City University of New York's 23 campuses among the latest to go smoke-free.

The school system's board of trustees voted this week to outlaw smoking on all of its campuses, the New York Daily News reports.

They also voted to ban cigarette advertisements on school grounds. The new regulations go in to effect this September.

The University of Michigan this week also laid groundwork for its smoking ban, which will be instituted in July. According to their plan, dubbed the Smoke-Free Initiative, the only legal place to light up on campus will be inside a privately-owned vehicle in a parking lot.

What do you think? Are you a smoker distressed by this news? Or is this the best thing you've ever heard? Weigh in below.

Comments

[CarolAST]

02:15 PM on 01/26/2011

The anti-smokers commit flagrant scientific fraud by ignoring more than 50 studies which show that human papillomaviruses cause at least 1/4 of non-small cell lung cancers. Smokers and passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus for socioeconomic reasons. And the anti-smokers' studies are all based on lifestyle questionnaires, so they're cynically DESIGNED to blame tobacco for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV. And they commit the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on tobacco.

http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm
http://www.smokershistory.com/etsheart.html

For the government to commit fraud to deprive us of our liberties is automatically a violation of our Constitutional rights to the equal protection of the laws, just as much as if it purposely threw innocent people in prison. And for the government to spread lies about phony smoking dangers is terrorism, no different from calling in phony bomb threats.

[Arturo Ramrez]

02:51 PM on 01/25/2011

I am a non-smoker. Not only that, I am asthmatic, and yet I oppose this ban. Smoking in open (truly open, not small yards) well ventilated areas should be legal. Or else the campii should also ban internal combustion vehicles.

[degenerate1991]

11:01 AM on 02/03/2011

Amen. The diesel fumes from my campus's fleet of buses are far more bothersome to me than secondhand smoke.

[JohnChen]

01:30 PM on 01/25/2011

Too many people here are confusing smoking bans with tobacco regulations. The latter concerns only the smoker, while the former concerns both smokers and nonsmokers. So if you're bringing up individual rights, tolerance, and so forth, then your argument is moot because smoking bans exist precisely for the maximal benefit of all individuals: nonsmokers don't have to inhale secondhand smoke, and smokers are still free to smoke in private areas.

[timotay89]

01:12 PM on 01/25/2011

I'm personally sick of walking around my college smelling smoke everywhere and being forced to inhale it. Ban it, ban it now.

[ttaz4dqm]

12:41 PM on 01/25/2011

*FACEPALM* - OUCH, burned my hand...

[in deserto]

04:08 PM on 01/25/2011

ROFLMAO

[Max Shaw]

11:50 AM on 01/25/2011

If you can sit in your car with the windows down and smoke..what difference would standing outside of it make? Now we can probably look for kids chewing snus and spitting everyone. Even better..

[The Albany Kid]

12:47 PM on 01/25/2011

Excellent point.

[gjdagis]

11:32 AM on 01/25/2011

I WAS once a smoker but I am not one any longer. I still feel the same about the subject. I am also an accomplished medical professional (Family Nurse Practitioner).

Yes, smoking is harmful to the smoker but the "second hand" smoke issue is bogus. It's just a guise to scare people so that smoking can be banned more easily. If the second hand smoke issue had never surfaced you would never get draconian, discriminatory measures such as this passed. It's a sad day in America when things like this are allowed to occur. By the way, I am allergic to animals and perfumes. I believe that pet owners should be forced to bathe before they come out into the public (and perhaps give up their pets since the dander adheres to their clothing). I shouldn't have to take massive doses of medications so that my throat doesn't close up every time I venture out in public!

[MattSanDiego]

03:12 PM on 01/25/2011

As an "accomplished medical professional," would you please give us the reasons why we should not believe the many scientific studies that demonstrate the dangers of second hand smoke?

[foxisms]

11:17 AM on 01/25/2011

Legal substance, people!... Being used in the open and equally owned atmosphere!
A country and it's institution's love of freedom will be known by it's tolerances not it's affinity for imposing restrictions.
Of course, knowing which institutions have a propensity to provide services for profit and then dictate behavioral limitations on the paying customer is good to know so the consumer can take their business elsewhere if they so choose. And if they don't?
They're absolutely part of a bigger problem in modern day America than simply using tobacco.

[MattSanDiego]

03:00 PM on 01/25/2011

As they say, you're right to swing your arm stops at my nose. Freedom is a relative thing, the bounds of which must be negotiated with others, unless you live alone on a deserted island.

Plenty of things are legal in some circumstances, illegal in others. Cars are legal -- should people be allowed to drive them on sidewalks? Water hoses are legal, should people be allowed to spray them in the face of passers-by? The list could go on and on.

The truest freedom we have in this country is the right to democratically enact laws. The majority of governments and institutions are now coming to the quite sensible conclusion that cigarette smoking should not be allowed in public places. Why? Because the majority of people want the freedom (there's that word again) to be in public areas without being exposed to cancer-causing and irritating cigarette smoke.

Don't like it? Then exercise your freedom to try to change the laws against public smoking. And good luck with that.

[foxisms]

03:39 PM on 01/25/2011

Well why don't the folks who have (and have had for some time) a problem with their noses, petition the government to outlaw tobacco?
Because government doesn't care or listen. So the alternative is to vilify people who partake of an ongoing legal substance and activity.
Wrong target of discontent.
The reason the founding fathers didn't make America a democracy is because in a democracy 51% of the people make the other 49% their slaves and subjects when in fact, America was designed to make ALL people free to make their own choices.
"Democracy is little more than voluntary imprisonment disguised as freedom."
Nothing points that out so much as inane restrictions that the people have to place on one another because government cannot be approached any longer to address the will of the people under the written terms of our constitution.
Which (I might add) in a constitutional republic such as we pretend to be governed by is where the laws need to be made. Not in a run around in public places such are college campuses, bars and sidewalk cafes.

[Benja0901]

10:28 AM on 01/25/2011

Good first steps. I hated having to walk through a cloud of carcinogen-laden smog to get into my classes. Im all for "smoking areas" on campuses where those who choose to, can indulge in their vice, but do not force me to endure it.

To those arguing about soda, agreed, it can cause obesity, but I don't force you to drink my soda with me, or eat my oversized big mac meal. (I do neither, I drink water, and eat healthy portions)

[jonester]

09:52 AM on 01/25/2011

Not Good! College actually made me start smoking!

[kyeshinka]

09:47 AM on 01/25/2011

The University of Iowa has a smoke-free ordinance, even outside. Most still smoke. I think that's great. Nobody takes it seriously because our nation hasn't made obesity a public health issue, even though it kills more than smoking. There are no laws against oversized portions; in fact we spend money accommodating overweight people. Medicare carts and new ambulances to carry obese patients. As long as this double standard remains, many smokers remain convinced these bans are less about health and more about discrimination.

[MattSanDiego]

03:04 PM on 01/25/2011

That's pretty clearly faulty logic -- the obese person at the park wolfing down his third cheeseburger in no way affects my health, unlike the skinny cigarette smoker blowing carcinogens into my breathing space. It's not at all a double standard to ban smoking in public without banning fattening foods.

[danivers]

09:47 AM on 01/25/2011

This is the America I live in:

I can legally take a gun to more public places than I can a lit cigarette.

I'm not opposed to guns. I'm opposed to stupidity.

[jonester]

09:53 AM on 01/25/2011

Excellent point! F&F

[MattSanDiego]

03:07 PM on 01/25/2011

Good comparison -- lit cigarettes are a lot like guns in that they both kill people.

The America you live in has finally come to its senses and banned cigarette smoking (not cigarettes, there is a difference) in most public places. Stupidity is how we waited decades to finally stand up to the tobacco lobby and do the right thing.

[Ross Trotter]

09:21 AM on 01/25/2011

As a non tabacco smoker I love it, but if the ban is for health reasons is Coca-Cola next? We have selective concern when it comes to the general public's health.

(I am not insinuating Coca-Cola has carcinogens. Sugary drinks are contributing to the obesity epidemic and thereby contributing to the sick-care $ystem)

[MattSanDiego]

03:08 PM on 01/25/2011

There's a big difference. No one force feeds me Coca-Cola in public, but the cigarette smoker is forcing me to breathe his carcinogens.

[battlinbob]

09:18 AM on 01/25/2011

Seems to me like a civil rights violation - especially if the school is owned by the state..

[in deserto]

04:15 PM on 01/25/2011

Why is every rule or law a violation of "civil rights?" Or is just the ones you don't like?

Regardless of what you hear on Fox, our Constitution doesn't say that anyone can do anything anytime anywhere.