Collegian

As a person with a lung disease, I feel strongly about this issue.  I have bronchial asthma; it is the inflammation of both the lungs and bronchial tubes.  I live with smokers and have realized my patience is wearing thin on the issue of smoking.

I have been told by my parents that I was born with asthma.  As I grew up I noticed that the asthma attacks had lessened.  As I became an adult my asthma worsened.

On Mar. 19, 1997, my maternal grandmother passed away.  She smoked since she was a teenager and until a few years before her death when she was told she had emphysema. Two of my great grandfathers died due to the effects of smoking, one in 1984 and the other in 1997.  One loved his tobacco pipe and the other his cigars. My mother smokes and even after seeing how it killed her mother and grandfather, she continues to smoke. She has tried time after time to stop, but always starts again, blaming some stress for making her light another.

There are countless stories in the world about illness and deaths caused by the effects of smoking.  The problem is that older Americans did know about the side effects of smoking.  Some younger Americans just do not seem to care.

A 2003 survey by former Student Senate President Mark Layman and former Vice President Tom Dake showed that few students cared about the issue of smoking on campus at all.

LCCC student Alexandra Morris circulated a petition in the fall to get smoking banned from the LCCC campus.  When she was getting people to sign her petition to ban campus smoking, she was told by the Student Life Program Coordinator, Rodger Campbell, "that it would violate student's smoking rights to ban smoking completely from the campus."

The problem is that smoking is not a right, it is a privilege.  Morris had other plans if a total ban of smoking campus wide did not occur.  One plan was to strictly place distance limits from exits for smokers. It is just too bad her hopes were dashed.

I think Morris should go back out and collect more signatures.  She may need to get a large chunk of the students to sign before anything would happen, but it is worth the effort.

If all else fails, the citizens can vote on a statewide smoking ban in November.  If passed, the ban would end smoking in and around all public places and at this college.

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