Smoke ’em if you got ’em: Tobacco ban approved

This is ridiculous. It’s a free country.

What was the amount of the grant offered to the University by TFK for taking away the freedoms of these students? In the past, college was a place where young men and women learned to make choices within a relatively safe environment. Sometimes those choices were bad, and sometimes they were good. It really didn’t matter much because that is what becoming an adult is about. Now, this university has stepped in to parent these children and put off their entry to the real world where decisions about life and lifestyle really matter. They deny them this precious time to grow and learn. I fear for the future adult population. Who will mother them and make choices for them when they are full-fledged adults. It is not about tobacco. It is about denying a generation of kids the opportunity to take responsibility for their own actions. Watch out for the dining plan that will arise from this: only low cal healthy foods and a weigh in before permission to have dessert. Forget about those beer parties. The university will adopt a no alcohol policy within the decade. How much was that grant for, and what is the long term cost of raising a generation of kids who cannot think for themselves? I hope that there are enough young people who choose not to go to this college to make a dent in future admission to the school and to the tuition and room and board money that goes with it.

This seems pretty tame and reasonable to me. I can understand why the posters above me are upset, but if instead of making rediculous assertions such as “The university will adopt a no alcohol policy within the decade”, they were to look at the facts presented in the article, they would find that this seems to be a pretty low key initiative. No enforcement deadline? That’s a sign right there. I would hope that the University won’t try to disenfranchise anyone, and keep this to predominantly what it seems like: an educational initiative. If it stays there, the school will actually save a ton of money on health insurance and compliance stuff by having resources for quitting on campus, and hopefully that will be reflected in our tuition…

“Some Call it ‘Progression,’ Some Say it’s Fate,
As We’re Bullied and Fined into Nanny State,
The Collective Doesn’t Mind, They’re All the Same,
Downloaded by T.V. and Each Internet Game,
Elite Count on the Brainwashed to Drown out Speakers
Who Know and Study, the Reality Seekers,
The Authoritarians are Openly Out on a Roll,
Over Every Life Facet, Demanding Total Control,
And No Tolerance for Resistors, Just Instant Obedience,
Totalitarian States are Not Known for their Lenience,
People Better be Firm and Learn to Say ‘No,’
Freedoms Lost, to Regain, is a Tough Road to Go”

I’d like to thank the author for covering the Faculty Senate so well. One thing I would point out, however, is that the Academic Program Prioritization Working Group (APPWG) report that is mentioned will, according to Provost Hunter at the meeting, contain the Group’s recommendations for program elimination. This was not mentioned in the article, and I believe that students might want to know this. There are likely to be substantial cuts of programs (including departments, majors, and faculty) recommended, and it is in students’ best interest to pay close attention to what is happening and to participate in the open forum.

This schools leadership is appalling. Stop trying to follow the liberal ideals and nanny state ideology and let us make our own decisions. What are you going to do? Give me a summons? Good luck.

The school doesn’t even enforce current 20yd(somewhere around that) from the buildings so why bother banning it entirely. A waste of money and is a perfectly legal practice that shouldn’t be banned and I’m not even a smoker

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but this is completely ridiculous. I am not even a smoker and I am upset by this BS tobacco ban. This actually motivates me to start smoking on campus in protest because it is a basic right that should never be taken away. I am ashamed that this is the direction that our university is headed.

Why bother going to the “forum”? The decision was made back in 2007. Sure, I’ll take my breaks three times a day driving off campus to smoke. Let’s see how they like the added air pollution from vehicles. They’ve already told us not to warm up our cars in the winter because of the added pollution. If the fear of dying hasn’t stopped me from smoking what make them think a smoke free campus will.

From the October 29, 2009 article “Tobacco Free Campus finishes its final report” written by Ashley Pearson and Melinda Hart:

“‘The university feels responsible for the health of its students and staff,’ Dana said.”

Yes, the university is responsible for the health of its students. If the walls are filled with asbestos then please, by all means, remove it so we don’t end up with mesothelioma. If the roads are covered in ice, close down school until they are safe again. Repair broken fire alarms so we don’t burn to death in the case of an emergency. Areas where the schools actions are directly responsible for the health of anyone on campus should be a concern for administrators because, well, its their responsibility.

Personal health? That’s my business and I would thank the school kindly for staying out of it. When, as an adult, I make the conscious decision to harm my own health, the school should not feel responsible. Just as they have no responsibility when if I were to get drunk and be sent to the hospital, the school should not feel responsible for those of us who consciously disregard our health. No one who smokes honestly believes this is a healthy habit and the university should not feel responsible for those members of the community that do not care about pristine lungs or immaculate circulatory systems.

Yes, Dylan, the policy may seem lax. But if there is no enforcement plan and such a lackadaisical attitude from the top about this program, then why have it at all? So nothing will happen if I keep smoking on campus? No one will tell me to stop or, further than that, even have the authority to force me to stop? Great, awesome, thanks for making a pointless policy that no one will follow and no one can enforce.

In short, stay out of my medical life. You have to sign a form to release your medical history for a reason: because its PRIVATE. College is about more than book learning; it’s about growing up and learning to make your own choices. So please, keep out of it and let me become an adult already.

This is ridiculous. I may be trying to quit smoking myself, but being forced into not smoking on campus is a little too much to swallow. This is a HUGE campus, and it will be difficult for those trying to follow the rules to get far enough off campus to have a smoke, especially between classes or on work breaks. Did they ever consider a compromise with smokers by creating designated smoker areas on campus? I’m sure this would have benefited EVERYONE had this been put into effect rather than a ban. Personally, I’ll be interested in seeing how many students, faculty and staff leave the University to go elsewhere because they have had a basic right denied to them.

wow… what a waste.

What about students that live on campus and do not have cars? Are they expected to walk all the way off campus in the middle of winter or are they going to have to hide in the woods to smoke a cigarette as if they were smoking smoking marijuana?

Class of 98 here…

So Orono…your rights have been taken away. A legal activity will soon be made verboten in the University of Maine motherland….

What are you going to do about it?

The suggested policy that allows years to smokers for adjustment is too liberal. We need to enforce a Zero Tolerance Policy right away and to get rid of those stinky people quickly and completely.

Suggested steps for enforcement of Zero Tolerance Tobacco Free Campus Initiative:

1. Since smokers will start hiding in bushes and behind trees, harming our health and polluting our community air, student and faculty patrolling brigades should be formed. These grass-roots brigades will pull violators out of hiding places to take pictures of them for pubic display on the Board of Shame to be displayed in Memorial Union.

2. Police should be trained to detain smokers, to fine them, and to be able to take blood or urine samples at the first suspicion of non-compliance with Zero Tolerance Tobacco Free Campus Initiative. Iron fist is the only tool that will bring this new ordinance to success.

3. There should be a call to our whole University community for vigilance. Faculty, staff and students who see smoking individuals on university grounds should be able to submit the name and/or area of violation to the agency responsible for enforcing the policy. Submissions should be accepted via online form and e-mail, and can be done anonymously.

4. On-campus surveillance system should be enhanced: administration should add video cameras that would monitor not only the campus grounds, but also stalls in all public restrooms, including the ones in dormitories: privacy of the bathroom stalls will become a safe harbor for people with their deadly addiction. These restrooms are the property of the University, and police and University administration should not have any legal restrictions to perform video monitoring and recording in order to obtain evidence of violators. To liberals that may oppose this step: law-obedient citizens should not need to worry about it and video recordings and monitoring will be accessed by only authorized personnel. This step is needed to ensure that there is no single place on campus for perpetrators.

5. The problem of smoking in the dormitory rooms can be easily solved by following the example of Pennsylvania School District: administrators gained the ability to watch students’ behavior through students’ laptop webcams at any time of the day or night. Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/19/laptop.suit/index.html?hpt=T2 The cost will be minimal, it is only a small software program to be installed on every user computer registering on campus.

Some liberals may say that smokers’ rights will be violated: there is no “right” to smoke or to drink under either state or federal law. Prohibiting smoking on campus preserves everyone’s right to have clean, smoke-free atmosphere while allowing adults who are smokers to continue to be so off-campus.

Strict enforcement of Zero Tolerance Tobacco Free Campus Initiative will quickly eliminate smokers from our lives, who are luckily only a minority on our campus.

The next step that our administrators should do is to eliminate alcohol – it brings violence and death to our otherwise happy community.

Students, faculty and staff should appreciate the administration’s efforts on the reduction of health risks associated with exposure to smoke and alcohol. These policies will quickly reduce health-care costs associated with the consumption of these substances. that in turn will strengthen the financial health of our institution. It will also ensure that all members of our campus community have access to the healthy lifestyle.

Zero Tolerance Tobacco Free Campus Initiative is only the first step to the overall national effort to ensure moral and physical health among members of our society and to enhance their law-obedience.

We, UMaine students, all applaud leadership of our Administration and we will do our best to demonstrate “a model of responsible conduct, good behavior and high standards” as it was prescribed to us recently. We will do our best to make our campus clean and healthy for every student and we will get rid of those stinky people together!!

Good Job!

I’m happy that Kennedy can be remembered for something good on campus. It is truly a good thing that UM has done here.

Of course, I should wait and see how well the policy is implemented. Regulations mean nothing if they aren’t enforced.

Should we allow you to do anything you want regardless of how it affects others?

I don’t appreciate your smoke. I don’t see why I should have to walk through it.

If you want to smoke then go away, far away. Perhaps if the smokers on campus had observed the current rules regarding distance from a building then no one would have bothered them further, but many people did not follow those rules and smoked right next to entrances.

The university has every right to demand that people refrain from engaging in activities which are detrimental to public health. Smoking, unfortunately for some, is one of those activities.

I would say to you, James, why don’t you quit wining about the loss of one of your truck stop hobbies and get with the program. Don’t be a patsy to the corporate ideal which has brainwashed you into thinking that smoking is a freedom rather than a curse.

You haven’t lost anything here, except maybe an early death.

I love your attitude and sincerely hope they do give you a summons. With any luck you’ll be the first person expelled for repeated violations of the new code.

You should definitely do that, start smoking to spite the new regulation. I wish more people thought like you.

While you are at it, why don’t you cut off your feet because trespassing laws are unfair, please.

Another wunderkind, I do believe that they are hoping to help you quit smoking, to encourage that, as well as protect those who do not smoke.

Who exactly are you punishing by your childish behavior, besides your children?

You might be the reason we are all headed for a country with less freedom, because you obviously can’t handle what you have.

I’d prefer they do it in the manner that they are, rather than leave you to your own devices.

If you accept that none of us have to support you or even give a damn when you come down with a smoking related disease, if you agree to just walk off into the forest rather than burden any of us with your medical bills (should you be unable to afford a few hundred thousand dollars worth of intensive medical care), if you agree to that then I agree that you should be able to beat yourself up anyway you choose.

You are completely average in thinking that what you do has no effect on anyone but you, which forms a large part of our countries problems.

Don’t you worry, Jun. We will form a couple of committees and will do such enforcements that will wipe all these sticky people completely off the surface of the Earth. Or at least — off the surface of our campus. Smokers have no rights to exist and spoil our life.

You wait, buddy!!! We will make our campus a happy and mandatory healthy place with an iron fist. Future generations will be grateful to us.

We will be setting up a table in Memorial Union to enlist volunteers for the brigades for smokers extermination. It is for a good cause, even though it might be crueland bloody at first.

Ha, Ha… I’d prefer it if they’d just smoke marijuana.

At least that doesn’t stink so bad.

If you have such a huge problem with it then why not just transfer to a more urban school with transportation that suits your need to smoke.

If smoking is essential to your ability to learn then you may be at the wrong university.

You are as dumb as your last post.

To relate the applause worthy efforts of a university’s gentle push of its students towards a healthy lifestyle, to a bloody crusade to kill all smokers is… well, it is beyond idiocy.

I guess all I can say to you is that you are beyond idiocy, buddy.
That you are a smoker is not surprising.

Also, your post implies that healthy is not a desirable state.
I believe you are the sort of person who would stick a cone up his own ass if someone told you not to.

When you wrote, “mandatory healthy place with an iron fist.”

Are you stating that you’d prefer the right to choose to be sick?

That is very smart.

No, buddy. Nobody in today’s free world has the right to choose to be sick, since we are all paying for your health. We are all moving in the right direction with this new policy and we support our leaders.

And gawd forbid if I catch you with a cig on campus!! It is my choice for you to be substance-free — not yours. Just relax and obey the rules that we’ll make for you.

I totally support this new policy in general, but I think it is too meek. Only radical actions will make it successful!

Your dramatical portrayal of the situation is not humorous, but I believe that you meant to be.

Could you please put more effort into it?

If I may direct you to another article at…

“http://mainecampus.com/2010/02/22/op-ed-author-argues-that-we-are-the-dumbest-generation-in-history/?ref=mostviewed”

If you were actually trying to say something then I believe this is the article you ought to post in.

su778sd – Thur 0210

And automobiles, that emit more carcinogens than all the smokers in Maine, I guess those will be banned too, eh?

What purpose does a cigarette serve it’s user, another?
A cigarette is designed only to be pleasurable, a hobby, something fun to do. We now know that it is exactly the opposite, that cigarettes are lethal.

Unfortunately, many people persist in doing things which are harmful to them. Sometimes, not simply because they enjoy the activity, but because they are afraid to live differently. This is a human error, to continue a behavior which is harmful for diminishing returns.

Why don’t you chew nicotine gum?
Much less toxicity, no adverse affects to others, no problem.

A vehicle has a purpose that has no substitute at this time.

I am surprised that this needs to be explained to you.
What part of your intellect made you compare an automobile to a cigarette. Locate it and have it removed.

The issue here has little to do with your freedom. You aren’t seeing the argument correctly if you think that people are taking something important, necessary, away from you.

Likely, the freedom argument you are referring to was developed in a board room by tobacco company executives in an effort to create a backlash against anti-cigarette campaigns.

Why do you argue for the freedom to make yourself sick, the freedom to abandon people who care about you, the freedom to be in pain, to be diseased, to die for nothing?

My mother died at 43 from lung cancer, due to smoking. I don’t expect you to care, but the issue is about helping people. Far from limiting your rights, removing the capacity for smoking increases all of our ability to live as life is about much more than a pack of cigarettes for a good price.

If you have all this desire to fight a cause then you ought to be fighting to dig the deepest hole you can and shove the tobacco company people in it. They lied to everyone while they became enormously wealthy, they bought the government off, they chemically refined a more dangerous, more toxic cigarette in order to make it harder for you to quit smoking. Nothing matters to these tobacco people except for getting your money and they know that by the time you get sick from their product they’ll have banked 20 years of your income. It is a devastatingly corrupt corporation which you protect.

Smoking is a habit which is learned. Unlearn it, just unlearn it and burn RJR and PM to the ground.

Should we shut down all the mills and plants that produce smoke?? How about stop driving vehicles? I hate walking past an exhaust pipe!! Also, this is a tobacco ban. Does me chewing tobacco harm you in any way?

Don’t relate things which are unrelated.
Plants and mills are not in use in order to create harmful waste.
What is the use of a hobby, tobacco, that kills it’s users?

Generally speaking, that which hurts you and serves no other purpose isn’t usually protected as an inalienable freedom.

You are foolish to compare machinery which serves a utility to your smoking habit.

I don’t care if you chew tobacco. If you want to carry around a plastic bottle of your own spit then go ahead.

There are plenty of non smoking students and the threat of smokers abandoning the university in order to pursue an education somewhere they are allowed to smoke is extremely weak.

1: we wouldn’t miss them as other non-smoking students would take their place.
2: Anyone who chooses their educational institution based on this factor shouldn’t be going to a university anyway.

If someone wishes to harm their body with something as idiotic as smoking, then they should be allowed.

If your argument is that the smoke that smoking cigarettes produces is harmful to others then I go back to the point I made earlier; we must rid our planet of everything that creates any type of pollution. That’s where we are headed. There is no need for Chevrolet Suburbans or Ford Excursions, but we continue to drive them around. Some even collect them.

What’s the use of alcohol? Alcohol is a harmful hobby, it can destroy your liver over time. Should we ban wine? No more beer at ball games? If you look closely enough, every hobby in some way is harmful.

I’m not saying all this directly relates to the university-wide tobacco ban, but your arguments suggest the removal of many other freedoms.

This is just sad.

Your arguments are false.

That smoking causes harm to the smoker and others does not necessitate the removal of all useful machines based on internal combustion. It is simply a false assertion. I don’t know where you hatched this idea. There are many useful reasons to have a Chevrolet. Although the suburban is probably not an ecologically friendly choice for most, it has a use and its pollution is an unwanted side effect of its utility, which is why the world is working to eliminate that form of pollution. In any event, cigarettes and suburbans are hardly comparable as no one is standing at the back of a tailpipe asking for another drag.

Alcohol is not harmful in moderation. Alcohol, in moderation, has no effect on other people near by the person consuming alcohol. The idea that we must give up alcohol in order to stop smoking is absurd. Although the two activities are also combines there is nothing keeping them together. Alcohol and smoking are unrelated. Water can kill you if you drink enough of it. Neither water or alcohol will harm you if used in moderation. Neither water or alcohol will harm the people around you if used in moderation.

My arguments do not suggest the removal of anything except tobacco. You are wrong to write otherwise.

Your arguments here are just bad logic.

Hey you must be either a Hitler or Stalin lover and I’d figure the Stalin, since obviously you prefer mass genocide in a short period of time.(See what happened in the Ukraine in the 30′s) I’ll fight to my last breath for you’re right to say and act like a moron, but I’ll also fight for my life to live like I see fit. I can see having designated areas to smoke on campus. If you don’t like smoking you can avoid those areas, and the smokers who choose to can walk there and not cause more issues by having to drive off campus. Obviously your a self centered person who loves having control and is completely intolerant of other human beings who have different views. As for the health care no one is having to pay for my smoking if this country wasn’t turning into a nanny state then you’re argument wouldn’t hold any water at all. Its a matter of person being held accountable for their own actions. If i can’t afford to pay for the heath care costs, then I wont get the treatment plain and simple. Its called personal responsibility for ones actions. I rather die doing something I love, than live miserable for the rest of my life. Enjoy this power trip while you have it, because before you know the powers that be will take from you something you enjoy. Maybe then you’ll grow-up and realize how stupid you’re being.

Jun
I would like you to read Customs & Usages
Lawful and then report back to me, right here Hitler…………………

There are tons of workplaces and other public places that ban smoking, this is no different. If you want to choose another school that allows you to smoke, more power to you. But, really, can’t you go a couple of hours without smoking? Smoke in your car on the way to class, and when you get out for goodness sakes! I for one, got really sick of walking out of a building into a cloud of smoke after every single class. The U put up signs that say no smoking within 50 feet of building, and the smokers would stand next to the sign, which is next to the door, and smoke. So it is impossible to avoid smoke on campus. For people that are concerned about the health risks or who are extra sensitive to smoke, this is a great thing. For smokers, it’s not much different than the U telling me I can’t drink wine in my classes. I love wine, and I have the right to drink it, but it is inappropriate for me to drink it in class. So, smokers, suck it up and accept that smoking is not just about you, it’s about the people that are smart enough to not smoke in the first place, too!

Smoke-Free Tobacco Campus Initiative is definitely not the issue of second-hand smoke, otherwise it would suggest strategically placed “smoking posts” on campus, so that smokers and non-smokers could peacefully co-exist.

It is a political issue of power of one group over the other. In 1950′s we had schools , rows in theaters, seats in buses, and restaurants for “whites only”. It was up to the institution or a business to decide who should be excluded from its premises. At that time they did not think that they violated anyone’s rights. They said at that time that people of color have the right to exist “off-campus”, which was an uncovered hypocrisy.

UMaine 2010 continues the tradition of segregation: today the administrators say that smokers have the right to continue to be smokers off-campus.

It is a ban, a prohibition of legal substance on campus. It is the matter of “our power over your choices”, not public health issues.

Public hearings on Smoke-Free were a farce of democracy: low attendance was an indicator of public awareness that the decision had already been made. It was not worth the time to participate in the game where administration sets the rules.

I view it as a very dangerous political precedent: after the administration succeeds with the elimination of Threat #1 (smoking), it will be inspired to eliminate Health Threat #2: obesity. Lots of arguments will be presented in favor of the new initiative to protect our public health. And we will be expected to demonstrate “good behavior and high standards” to our administration.

The very buses, theaters and restaurants from the 1950s that Joe Marino cites became 100% smoke-free in the subsequent decades. We began to understand the toxic harm done by breathing in the smoke. It just makes environmental sense to remove the source of the toxin.

As for individuals, to quote the American Lung Association, “when you can’t breathe, nothing else matters”.

My opinion is that a person who smokes has no right to pollute the air of others, whereas a person with asthma DOES have the right to breathe. Strong, comprehensive smoke-free policies ensure that right.

According to Bob, we should ban smoking in private yards. A lot of people already mentioned cars: one Suburban on campus emits more toxins than all the smokers together. Think big, Bob, about the direction (political) we are all moving.

It is vain and belligerent for the decision of one person to try, in his own view, to correct personal lives of faculty and staff. One president of the school has stayed more than 10 years in the past hundred and Kennedy was job shopping last year. Yet the office seems to believe that it can unilaterally make lifestyle choices for the entire population. Consultation with faculty, staff and students has not even begun to attempt consensus. I, and I hope many others, will refuse to recognize totalitarian decisions by ephemeral bodies and hope to incur restrictions on the power of the president to act without faculty senate, student senate and staff senate.
Time for political involvement because you and everyone was just excluded.

You have written so many things which are false.
I don’t think it is necessary to reply to your arguments that I am a hitler lover, that I prefer mass genocide, or that you have a right to act like a moron.

You are clearly angry, but anger is not indicative of reason.

Ridiculous, that the smoke free initiative is an abuse of power.

I hate to ask you, the conspiracy theorist elite, but why on Earth would the University desire to oppress you, the smokers, for no other reason than to feel the muscle of their superior political powers?

You are absurd and really have said nothing about the issue, so much about yourself.

Again, you are comparing a vehicle to a cigarette when there is no comparison.

I’d also like to see your statement backed up by fact.

When a vehicle enters and exits the campus, exactly what quantity of emissions are distributed to the people on campus. You need to take into account the average persons proximity to the emissions.

Relate that to the exact quantity of smoke produced by a cigarette and its distribution to both smokers and non-smokers on campus, also taking into account the average persons proximity to a cigarette.

Even if I thought the basis for your argument was sound, which I don’t, it is likely that more people must be present near a lit cigarette than an automobile. You also must account for the people which are putting their lips to the end of the cigarette.

Or, you could just look at the medical statistics which document the millions of people dying from cigarette use every year, but I doubt that means anything to someone as desperate as you appear.

This may be the exact reason why Kennedy is doing something as great and ambitious as this.

People in administrative positions have unusually comfortable salaries and because of such are are often useless. They become frightened to take any action lest they hurt their own gain.

How exactly is Kennedy being vain?
I don’t believe this issue is a personal one for Kennedy.

How exactly is Kennedy being belligerent?
He is giving smokers until 2012 to quit on campus. That is hardly war-like.

The office can and does make lifestyle choices for the entire population. This choice just happens to be one you disagree with, but there are others who see it as the correct choice.

You are free to do as you please, to a certain extent, on your own land. The campus is not your land. It is our land.

If you’d would of actually read my comments instead of just scanning over them, I called the Non-smoking Enthusiast a Stalin lover. If progressives would actually take a second and read the constitution in the bill of rights there is a little clause in the there called free speech. The act of Moronism is obviously a matter of opinion not fact. I said you were acting like a moron, but I recognized your right to do so but I painfully disagree with you. As for the mass genocide comment I refer to this quote in one of Non- Smoking Enthusiast “You wait, buddy!!! We will make our campus a happy and mandatory healthy place with an iron fist. Future generations will be grateful to us.

We will be setting up a table in Memorial Union to enlist volunteers for the brigades for smokers extermination. It is for a good cause, even though it might be crueland bloody at first.”

If you couldn’t get mass genocide of a particular group out of that than you have an IQ of 5. As for the Stalin reference in Ukraine look up the Holodomor where between 1932 – 33 10 million Ukrainians died because of Stalin’s policies taking their food supply away to support his agenda and make them submit to Communism. Also unless Jun is Non – Smoking Enthusist I made no reference to either Hitler or Stalin towards you. I can understand the Non-Smoking Campus argument, but going to extremes isn’t the answer. A middle ground could of been reached here, but obviously the the ban won. Out of curiosity how can you defend Non- Smoking Enthusist comments as being filled full of reason. Forming a witch hunt to me isn’t logical and is a sign of being completely illogical. Blindly justifying the extreme fringe of your side of the argument isn’t logical think for yourself. Like I said I have nothing against non-smokers not wanting to walk through smoke. I can understand that completely and its completely logical and hold nothing against them, but I do have a problem with people who hold no respect for people with opposing views.

You can make the same argument about junk food and transfats people. The medical statistics prove that overeating and not exercising cause more health problems than Smoking. What ever happened to the liberals saying my body my choice. When it doesn’t fit your argument that goes away fast. Again I have no problems with people who didn’t want to walk through smoke, but again things could of been done to to meet both sides in the middle here.

The mayor of a medium-sized town mandates that smoking is prohibited in the town. The police are required to enforce this decree. Citizens are given one year to adjust or they may leave the town, giving up their property. How is this any different?
Smoking is absolutely useless for smokers but one random person can’t decree others’ lives, decisions and bad habits.

Why don’t you ask Mayor Bloomberg, in NYC?

In any event, you seem to think that a township is the same thing as a University. It is not. You do not have the right to live on the campus of the University, rather, you’ve the privilege.

It is a ridiculous argument at this point.
You are relating two unrelated things and have blown things far out of proportion.

Guys, it is all good to me… I do not smoke tobacco — so i’ll be fine in a TOBACCO-free campus and I will still be able to smoke in public!

I only smoke weed (seaweed) since I believe that I receive a lot of iodine to strengthen me physically. It is like medicine — we do it in my country. It stinks to other people but there is absolutely no research data that it is harmful to humans as first- or second-hand smoke. It is absolutely legal and cheap!

Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Emerald-Cove-Silver-Seaweed-35-Ounce/dp/B001216DFM

If others smoke weed like me – there is nothing to be worried about, we can still smoke it on campus and even form a weed-smoking club or something.

We will be in trouble, however, when they start forming Weed-Free Campus Committees…

Then we’ll be smoking dried fish (elders in my country do it to receive additional Omega-3)– man, it’ll stink! But it will be nutritious to the environment and others around us — they won’t have the reason to complain! Good times!

That, in itself, is indicative of your hypocrisy. Marijuana is an illegal drug but YOU prefer it to tobacco. Your suggestion of transferring to a school that still trusts individuals to make their own decisions is an excellent one. I hope many students take your suggestion.

I do prefer the smell of marijuana to the smell of a cigarette and most people I’ve ever spoken with, who’ve ever smelled both, do also.

In addition, marijuana is used by people in order to help them through cancer treatments and other illnesses, legally. So, your argument isn’t exactly true. Marijuana is sometimes illegal, frequently, but not always.

Either way, wasn’t it obvious that I was making a joke at the expense of a cigarette, writing that I’d prefer to have to smell marijuana than tobacco smoke?

kathryn writes,
“Your suggestion of transferring to a school that still trusts individuals to make their own decisions is an excellent one. I hope many students take your suggestion.”

As do I.

KO,
I tried to read this post but it is just a ramble.

I tried to find your position, but… I don’t know?

Can you simply state your position?

All I can respond to for sure is that there is no need to defend someone’s right to do something dumb. That is a perverse interpretation of our rights, regardless of whether or not it is the popular interpretation.

There is also no need for an individual to preserve the opposing view. The reason for argument is to get somewhere, not simply to argue. I don’t need to respect your view if I disagree with it. I respect you, in that you are taking the time to write something. The amount of respect accorded to you depends on the quality and/or effort of your post.

You could have written to whom you meant to reply at the beginning of your next, subsequent reply. Since your text came below mine I thought that it was directed to me.

I’m pretty sure that you were replying to at least two people in the post in question, but you didn’t state to whom you were responding to. You are all over the place.

I applaud the decision people forget that when it comes to certain substance use on campuses the university have ever right o limit that use. Many colleges have alcohol bans on campus, especially in the dorms. While on university property whether public or not students have to abide by the rules. I went to Suffolk University located in downtown Boston and everyday smokers would crowd the entrances to the Sawyer and Donohue buildings. In order for me to reach class I always had to walk through a smokescreen and bodies. I could care less about their “right” to smoke. We have the MBTA here as our transportation system. Smokers are not allowed to smoke anywhere on MBTA property even if its outside. There is also a citywide ban on indoor smoking something many cities have adopted. Smokers have no more right to smoke on university property than I have to binge drink on it. I applaud the decision and have absolutely NO sympathy for the poor guy that has to trek across campus to have a cig. Good for him at least he is getting the much needed exercise.

Yes and let’s ban perfume next. It stuffs me up and can’t be good for my respiratory condition.

How about cell phones. Those damn radiation waves are going to give me brain cancer. Those moronic cell phone users should go trek across campus just to make a call. Why should they be infecting my brain with their ridiculous radiation?

Fact:

Japan has more smokers per population than the USA but for some reason, have higher life expectancy AND about HALF the number of LCDR’s (lung cancer incidence rates…) Obviously, smoking is not that big of a health factor. Or maybe sushi is the panacea of life.

Did any of you really think there was merit to the “debates” and “open forums”? When the admin wants something to go, it’s a go. The whole forum and open discussion bullcrap was just that, bullcrap to make students feel like they had a voice. Policy changes like this are such a joke, the admin is well aware the majority of students, smokers and non-smokers, do not support this total ban. Just a few years until UMaine is a dry campus! Glad I graduated from this mess of a university!

Please…let us make one thing clear here….this isn’t about health. The University could care less about the student’s and staff’s health. If they cared, they would outlaw booze and junk food while creating a mandatory exercise program for all. Right? I mean, that makes sense if HEALTH was the issue? With that out of the way, the next hurdle for us to go over is the “you want to be unhealthy?” arguement. As if my decisions and choices can be considered as “wrong” and therefore have no weight. Someone is going to tell me what I can and can’t do because it is bad for me? It’s ok for someone to tell me that I can’t do a LEGAL activity because I might harm myself?

That’s wrong. You’re wrong.

I just read through these comments and was both amused and disgusted at the totalitarian attitudes of “Jun” and “Non-smoking enthusiast”.

“And gawd forbid if I catch you with a cig on campus!! It is my choice for you to be substance-free — not yours. Just relax and obey the rules that we’ll make for you.” – Non-Smoking enthusiast.

That comment is so baffling and absurd, I can barely begin to substantiate.
YOU have no right to make a choice on behalf of someone else without their permission.
Last time I checked, the UMaine system was located on U.S. soil where freedoms, choices and rights were protected by the constitution. Where sweeping, widely affecting intiatives were decided by the population; not some zealots acting on their own wrinkled sensibilities.

And as far as I know, the U.S. is a democracy, not a dictatorship “Jun”.

“A cigarette is designed only to be pleasurable, a hobby, something fun to do. We now know that it is exactly the opposite, that cigarettes are lethal.” – Jun

No doubt they are detrimental to health but the core point is the option to chose.
Would you also ban condoms? The use of one indicates something pleasurable and in no way useful to ourselves or the population, thus it must not be allowed.

“Unfortunately, many people persist in doing things which are harmful to them. Sometimes, not simply because they enjoy the activity, but because they are afraid to live differently. This is a human error, to continue a behavior which is harmful for diminishing returns.” – Jun

Yes people persist in doing things which are harmful to them, it is their right to make a choice.
People give birth, have sex, drive, drink alcohol, eat raw foods, go to war etc; a great number of things that could turn out badly for them but THEY DO IT ANYWAY BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE OPTION OF CHOICE.
Afraid to live differently? How you were admitted into college, I’ll can’t fathom.
“Charitable family donations” no doubt.

“Why don’t you chew nicotine gum? – Jun
Much less toxicity, no adverse affects to others, no problem.”

Have you ever compared the price of the nicotine gum to the average pack of cigarettes? It’s roughly 5 times as much or more.

“Likely, the freedom argument you are referring to was developed in a board room by tobacco company executives in an effort to create a backlash against anti-cigarette campaigns.” – Jun

Just how brainwashed by the foolish counterculture have you been? No doubt Tobacco companies must devise ways to stay in business but there was always been one thing they could bank on; in America, PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHOICES.

“My mother died at 43 from lung cancer, due to smoking. I don’t expect you to care, but the issue is about helping people. Far from limiting your rights, removing the capacity for smoking increases all of our ability to live as life is about much more than a pack of cigarettes for a good price.” – Jun

You’re right, other people don’t necessarily care. I know I don’t but I would venture to say it is unfortunate she did, but she made a choice and that is, once again what this is about. CHOICES. Removing the ability to make a choice IS a limitation of rights, get over yourself.

As to Miah,

You obviously feel that tobacco and alcohol are of primary import in higher education. I don’t share your view that the university is a mess because it is regulating tobacco.

From viewing the police beat on this online paper, the university would do good to step up their effort to regulate alcohol closer, especially since most of the people living on campus aren’t allowed to consume it.

In short, neither tobacco or alcohol go hand in hand with education. In fact, I’d say these two vices are often at odds with knowledge. Perhaps you are too?

Travis,

There is no indication in the University’s current tobacco related actions to suggest that it doesn’t care about your health. Your statement flies in the face of logic. There is no financial incentive for the University to regulate tobacco. It appears to be a purely health related concern.

You are obviously distraught over the potential loss of your ability to smoke while on campus, but you cannot say that because the University does not enforce a totalitarian style health mandate, across the board, for ever facet of your existence, that the current tobacco related action has nothing to do with health.

Your argument has not, as you presume, proved the University has no concern for its student’s health.

Again, the University can (and does) request many things of its students in order to meet standards and precautions. Frequently, regulations are safety or health related. The campus is not your personal playground. It is not your smoke den. It is a place to grow your mind, which from your post, seems a little cloudy.

In any event,
no disciplinary action is being taken until 2012 at which point, I imagine, most of the protestors on this board will be gone.

Perfume use is restricted in many places. While it is not illegal to use perfume, many establishments ask that people refrain from using perfume because of the potential to trigger asthma in susceptible individuals.

How does perfume relate to cigarette smoke?

If you have a respiratory condition and perfume bothers you then all you need to do is get that condition documented and bring that evidence to the University. I’m sure that they will accommodate you. You may not even have to go that far, if you simply tell the people you are forced to be working with that their perfume is causing your respiratory condition to worsen then I imagine that those people will not wear perfume around you out of consideration for you.

It is too bad that non-smokers cannot get the same polite consideration from smokers, probably why initiatives like this are necessary.

Without this initiative non-smokers have no recourse against your dangerous habit. Non-smokers should not be forced to share your callous attitude towards their own health, especially at a University, where people pay large sums of money in order to improve themselves.

I suspect if you were to take this smoking initiative to a truck stop you’d find little support.

It is quite easy to quote one favorable statistic and use that to support a bias. It is also worthless. There are a great many things, not the least of which the Japanese’s proclivity for consuming fish instead of red meat, that make up the health profile of their nation. It is stupid to suggest that smoking equates to longevity and reduced cancer rates.

The verdict on cell phones causing cancer is not in yet, but you can be sure that if cell phone use is directly linked to brain tumors then those devices will be heavily regulated and probably not sold. You raise a valid concern though and I suggest that if you are worried about your health in regards to cell phones in class that you speak to an administrator. I don’t know the safe distance one must be in order to avoid cell phone EMF, so I cannot say if they should be allowed on campus or not.

This smoking ban makes the administration of this university look foolish and ineffective on two counts:

1) The ban is unenforceable. This is blatantly obvious.

2) We are in the middle of a fiscal crisis. I don’t care if so and so smokes Marlboro reds, I want the president of this university doing his job, making sure that programs and funding are protected.

Here’s an open offer to Pres. Kennedy: smoke a few packs when you’re feeling stressed over the next week. After that it’s cold turkey, baby.

p.s. (Nicorette is expensive, lousy and we’re in a recession).

Are you people dumb?

Tobacco kills, plain and simple.
I would have thought that college students understand this simple fact.

I am glad to know the university is doing something to protect the non smokers on campus.

Jun, are you connected to or representing Tobacco Free Kids by any chance?

No, I’m not.

This message is to Jun.

Why don’t you go do something productive instead of hate on people who smoke cigarettes? It’s a CHOICE. I’m sure you like to be able to make choices as well, even if they could be harmful to your health. Have you ever wanted a Big Mac or to go skydiving? Cross the street? Talk on a cell phone? (Apparently that causes cancer now, too!) What if UMaine decided that they will no longer be allowing chips or cookies or anything with more than 30% calories from fat to be served on a meal plan? Obesity kills more people every year than you can imagine.

Regarding the fact that someone smoking negatively affects those around them, alcohol is completely relavant. Have you forgotten about drinking and driving? Thousands of innocent people die every year by drunk drivers. What about drunk people that fight or rape others while intoxicated? It’s completely ridiculous that the University turns their cheek to underage drinking (probably so that Orono PD can make a pretty penny on possession tickets) and bans something completely LEGAL.

You are a perfect illustration of why I hate liberals. Stop forcing your ideals on people who you disagree with– WE DON’T GIVE A DAMN.

And before you criticize me, know that I don’t smoke. I made the choice to quit a year ago. It’s human nature to want something more when someone tells you not to do it, which is why my parents hounding me to quit never ever succeeded. Quitting smoking is a personal choice that individuals make when they are ready to do so.

Oh, and Jun, stop referring to smoking as a “truck stop” hobby. Last I checked, UMaine was not a truck stop. In fact, 99% of the areas in the Greater Bangor Area are NOT truck stops and more people than not who smoke are NOT truckers.. shocker! Several decades ago, when smoking was socially acceptable and we didn’t have people like you to constantly criticize everyone for their bad choices, CEO’s, doctors, lawyers, and the like smoked a lot!

I am for the greater public health. I don’t consider McDonald’s, cookies, cell phones, or cigarettes to be the source of my happiness and would happily put them all down if that would make me and those around me healthier. I don’t eat McDonald’s food, don’t smoke, try not to use my cell phone if I can use a landline… So, I am doing these things. I don’t find it difficult. If it helps me or someone else then I am happy.

That being so, cigarettes are NOT related to these other activities because cigarettes are damaging INSTANTLY to both the smoker and anyone who must breath in the area of the smoker.

Skydiving and crossing the street are two activities in which the dangers of each, by any stretch of the imagination, have nothing to do with the dangers of smoking.

Let’s look at your argument as to why smoking is equivalent to drinking and driving. You state that a drunk driver hitting someone with their vehicle is deadly, and you are correct. In fact, I completely agree with your argument that smoking and drunken driving are both deadly. One of these activities is already illegal. It used to be thought of as not a big deal to drink and drive, people did it all the time.

Now, you go to jail for drunken driving and rightfully so. The dangers of smoking are being taken seriously. I don’t think that smoking a cigarette is as dangerous as drunken driving, but they both are damaging. I’m using your analogy and I like it.

You have perfectly illustrated why smoking ought to be banned on campus by connecting it to another very dangerous habit, one which used to be commonplace, drinking and driving. Thank you.

What you fail to see is that alcohol alone, in moderation, is not usually dangerous to anyone. Alcohol combined with heavy machinery is contraindicated and already illegal. I think it is beautiful how you connected smoking to drunk driving, since both activities cause an innocent bystander to be hurt.

You haven’t made any case against alcohol consumption because alcohol is not intended to be drank before operating machinery or doing other complex tasks, as we stated, the act of doing so is illegal. The worst thing that will happen to you from someone who drinks a beer is that he or she may burp in your direction, hardly the same as having to breath in a thick, painful cloud of carcinogens.

So, why should drunk driving be illegal and smoking be legal?

By your own admission, they have much in common.

Please don’t try to ploiticize this argument. It is not about democrats or republicans, it is about people breathing air that is clean or breathing air that causes disease.

You make it clear that you do not care about other people who disagree with you. So, what is the point of writing anything?

I am happy to tell you that the world in which you live is shrinking faster than you can say, Rush Limbaugh. America is not the land of do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. Unless you have a couple million dollars or more you are going to have to care about other people when your actions negatively affect them. Either that, or you’ll pay the price.

You are a perfect illustration of why I hate stupidity, because it makes people stupid.

Don’t pollute our air. Fishbowl your tobacco smoke and die quicker, if that is your desire, because you are as free as a bird inside your own little home.

If any of you ever wondered how smoking bans were enforced on people that did not want or need them, here is the guide the anti-smokers use to bully their way throughout our nation’s towns, cities, and now universities. If you thought that the language used on here sounds like something you have heard before, that’s because anti-smokers pound that language into the memories of their volunteers, making them sound much like robots or parrots. Brainwashing appears to be effective for people who don’t think of the consequences. Google, for instance, “smoking in a room or bar is like someone peeing in a pool.” You will get thousands of hits because it is one of the slogans that they use ad nauseum. It was actually a line from comedian George Carlin years ago. Read this guide and recognize their tactics.
http://strategyguides.globalink.org/
You might also be interested in this anti-smoking campaign, http://www.bmj.com/archive/7070nd2.htm and recognize the words and tactics used in today’s anti smoking campaigns. As an added bonus, here is a history of smoking bans throughout time and the world. One thing they have in common is that they ALWAYS eventually failed. It is difficult business to try to control people’s choices.
http://www.sadireland.com/smoking1.htm
One other tidbit: in places with comprehensive smoking bans, the smoking rates go up rather than down. Ireland’s smoking rate has gone up 4% since their strict smoking ban. The rate of smoking in the UK has gone UP since the ban. In Ohio, the smoking rate has gone UP since the ban. People have a tendency to want to make choices for themselves. When someone tries to alter that choice, they rebel: simple human nature.

That sounds really interesting.

If someone could find a way to make a healthy smoke we’d all be happy.

I agree, in that people who are morbidly obese should be taken care of, helped to reduce their weight.

The problem that you are ignoring is that everyone is damaged by cigarette smoke, while only some people are obese from junk food. Trans fats, thought to damage everyone, are not in our food now.

Your argument doesn’t support the idea that smoking should be left unregulated. Some people are harmed by fatty food, but other people are not. Those who are in the vicinity of a person eating fatty food are left unharmed. Smoking harms everyone.

I’m not sure how you were educated, but whoever taught you to use analogies was misguided.

You cannot compare condoms and cigarettes and expect any rational debate. The two are incomparable from a public health perspective.

I don’t believe that my dead mother would have any problem with a smoking ban on this university. She left behind a growing family and never saw her grandchildren. She was not ready to die and none of us were ready to see her go. It was, and is, very sad.

You, like so many others, are afraid of losing your rights. You seem to not understand that the inability to hurt yourself (or others) with tobacco is actually a gain.

You are foolish to think that people in America have the right to make choices. People in America, like anywhere else, have the right to follow the law. You make choices from the available pool of allowed actions. Deal with it. It is fair.

You are the one who has been brainwashed. Your freedoms are allowed you because they serve a greater purpose than you smoking cigarettes. If the scope of your vision is so tiny that the only thing that you can think to do with the bill of rights is fight for your right to blow smoke in my face then you are small.

I am amazed at how often I see a phrase like “get over yourself” pointed in the opposite direction from where it belongs. I wouldn’t use those words, but they do apply to you. You are not so mighty and great as to warrant the privilege to make other people sick with your hobbies. It is interesting how you thought to use that phrase with me, who wants to protect myself and others, instead of yourself who wants the freedom to do something which hurts others. This isn’t about ideals. People are sick and dying, painfully, terribly, from cigarettes. I don’t care about your choice to do harm. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to the issue since I witnessed it firsthand, many times, but that doesn’t make me wrong. You don’t deserve the rights you are ascribing to yourself, no one does. Smoke in your own home if you must. Die with the knowledge that you caused your own painful death, if that is your wish. Smoking is akin to suicide.

Economics aside, nicotine gum is a safer alternative to smoking and it doesn’t hurt another person. If you have healthcare then you should be able to get a prescription for it.

This is the first comment to make me upset. You are a sick person to relate birth to smoking, as if the two were related in a manner of harm. Birth is the most sacred thing I can think of. You defame life with your ignorance of the meaning of words. You are a fool who clearly knows little.

Jun–

1. I am so happy for you that you find not one dangerous thing the source of any joy whatsoever. Congratulations! If only we all could be as wonderful as you.

2. Pretty sure no one is physically or mentally forcing you to walk within 2 feet of another human being who is smoking. You know what? Hold your breath altogether, because there’s a lot of other toxins in the air in much greater volume than cigarette smoke.

3. The point was that those those activities (such as skydiving) are dangerous. Because they are dangerous, should they be forbidden? No, I was not comparing them to smoking. At all.

4. Don’t tell me what I fail to see. On a college campus, the University of Maine included, alcohol is, for the great majority, not consumed in a healthy way. You are blind if you think so. I know you’re probably going to preach about how YOU drink it in moderation, but you don’t need to. We already know you are a complete saint. Binge drinking is extremely dangerous and all too common for hundreds, thousands even, just on this campus. The recent stabbing? Alcohol related. The hit and run? Possibly alcohol related. Alcohol, on this campus, is officially dangerous to people around those consuming it.

And yes, alcohol was not intended to be consumed before operating machinery. Just like cigarette smoke was not intended to negatively affect those who were not smoking. But, surprise! Both of these happen all the time. BOTH. You said it yourself.

6. This may sound as if I am contradicting myself, but my position on the legality of smoking is as follows: I don’t think smoking should be legal. HOWEVER, if smoking is legal for those over the age of 18, it should not be banned on a college campus.

7. Have you ever been to Los Angeles? China? Their air is essentially one GIANT cloud of carcinogens that millions millions of people are forced to breathe every waking moment of their lives. And they can’t just step to the other side of the sidewalk, either. Is anyone doing anything about banning the factories that cause these problems? (Don’t say this is irrelevant. It’s relevant.)

8. Democrats: favor big government and their control on social institutions. Republicans: don’t.

9. You make it clear that you would like to damn everyone to hell that goes out to smoke a butt as a break from a 6 hour library study session. I care about people who disagree with me– please, help me understand your point of view so that I can be more accepting of it. You are failing thus far.

10. You live here too.

11. OUR air. Yes. It is OUR air. Not yours, not the nonsmokers, but everyone’s air.

Your last sentence is completely disgusting. I hope you get your wish that the smokers at UMaine will die faster because they are now forced to smoke in their cars. Long live Jun.

P.S. kathryn, your post =

Thanks. I liked yours also.

Where did you get this misguided notion that your wants and needs supercede mine? They don’t. Stay out of places where smoking is allowed. Enjoy your paranoid bubble existence, but don’t expect others to join in or applaud your efforts. My advice to the students is to simply protest. I give my age away, but I don’t mind. I was a college student in the late 60′s and early 70′s. People made fun of the hippies and their silly protests against war and civil rights, YET in the end, the war ended, and civil rights became law. I guess it was not so silly after all. What amazes me is how this day’s generation simply sits back and allows this crap to happen. When smoking is gone, and they come after alcohol (already in the works) then food (already in the works), you will wish you had made your voice heard back when the target was smoking. It will be much more difficult then.

Red, you are mistaken (again, and again.)

“stop referring to smoking as a “truck stop” hobby. Last I checked, UMaine was not a truck stop. ”
- I wrote that you’d find less resistance to a smoking ban at a truck stop, because it is not an institution of higher education. I see you didn’t understand that.

“Several decades ago, when smoking was socially acceptable and we didn’t have people like you to constantly criticize everyone for their bad choices, CEO’s, doctors, lawyers, and the like smoked a lot!”

- You are correct. Many decades ago people were still debating the health effects of smoking. The debate is over.

You don’t want to speak to the issue, Kathryn, that smoking kills people and second hand smoke too.

Your defense is that if a ban is enforced then “we’ll just smoke more.”

You are a child.

Most of your argument is easily pointed directly back at you, which makes it mostly irrelevant.

For example,

Where did you get this misguided notion that your wants and needs supercede mine? They don’t. Stay out of places where smoking is not allowed, like this campus in 2012. Enjoy your paranoid bubble existence, but don’t expect others to join in or applaud your efforts. My advice to the students is to simply protest.

What amazes me is how this day’s generation simply sits back and allows this crap to happen. As long as smoking is allowed, they’ll try to legalize all deadly drug habits (already in the works), you will wish you had made your voice heard back when the target was smoking. It will be much more difficult then.

I’m not worried about “them” coming after anything, but I will take some guilty pleasure knowing that there are people like you thinking that they are being oppressed by a community led effort to eliminate a dangerous habit.

There isn’t any reason not to.

To Jun (Laurie Sidelko)–

Once you gain control over people with their choice to smoke, here is the model for your next step: Bloomberg.

“Mayor Bloomberg and the Health Department have opened a new front in the battle to get New Yorkers, and maybe all Americans, to eat more healthily. The target now is salt…”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/01/12/2010-01-12_pounding_salt.html#ixzz0hGqYZC4f

Time to start a new “awareness program”, Laurie!

Bottom line: people who are against the ban will continue to smoke.

and Jun, lighten up. Did this article need an anti-smoking campaign in the comments? Not really, since the article already is one.

The ban doesn’t even really go into effect for 2 more years. Smokers, go rip a butt in the meantime.

“Do not protect me from myself”

“To Jun (Laurie Sidelko)–”

This is who Jun is?

Upon Googling this name, Lauri Sidelko is the director of the Alcohol and Drug Education Programs at UMaine.

If this is true, I am thoroughly appauled that a UMaine faculty member in a position such as this would speak to students this way. You are ruining the reputation of your office by being so degrading, rude, obnoxious, and judgmental. I’ve been completely disgusted by your disregard for anyone’s opinion but your own.

It’s nice to know that the University’s programs designed to help students are designed and implemented by someone so close-minded, judgemental, ans selfish.

It would be interesting to know where their funding originated. My bet is on Robert Woods Johnson Foundation. If so, you can bet that implementation of a campus smoking ban gains a large grant for the university and probably for the Alcohol and Drug Eduction office.

The bottom-line least common denominator of the current Nanny mentality is all about asserting control based on personal insecurities, and the self-righteous illusions of ‘knowing what’s best, affirming, and healthy for the freshly-scrubbed incoming freshmen.’. ‘Jun’ A.K.A Lauri Sidelko is just another Nanny shit-puppet, and deserves nothing less than derision and ridicule for her unabashed disrespect for UMaine’s student body at large.

How these deplorable idiots ever ascend the ranks of administrative power is beyond me…

Jun = Laurie (Mother of this project). She is defending her *baby*

Well I’m glad the identity of “Jun” has been narrowed to someone more specific.
I’m disgusted that someone in such an office would push for this kind of ban when it goes against what their job description entails; helping the students with substance abuse.

The alcohol and drug education program’s mission, in case you are such a hypocrite or can’t remember what it is, is as follows:

“The mission of the University of Maine’s Alcohol and Drug Education Programs is to change the campus drinking culture and gain a greater understanding of the dynamics of our community; provide substance use and abuse related education and resources to individuals and groups; empower students to make healthy CHOICES around the issue of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; encourage an environment conducive to academic success where substance abuse is not tolerated; and continually monitor, measure, and improve our approaches to increase safety and reduce risks through primary prevention of substance abuse for members of our university community.”

In case you missed the point, I capitalized CHOICES to drive the point home.
The use of tobacco is a choice; no doubt a poor one but a choice that you, I and the prostitute on the corner are afforded by this country to make.

I don’t remember being taught that “choice” is part of a mandate, in any sense.
Clearly tobacco is not good for you, but as I’ve said, it’s a choice.

Your rights are no less than mine, granted, but this is not the issue. WE ARE EQUAL IN THE EYES OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF THESE UNITED STATES.
I don’t care if you’re a faculty member, I don’t give a damn who you are or what your life has been like, we all have the fundamental right to make these choices.

The bans of a public university are irrelevant, plain and simple.
Certainly, you can ban it indoors; this is just common sense. Not only that, it is by federal law. Outdoors however, makes tobacco illegal across the board.

“I don’t believe that my dead mother would have any problem with a smoking ban on this university. She left behind a growing family and never saw her grandchildren. She was not ready to die and none of us were ready to see her go. It was, and is, very sad.” – “Jun”

No doubt she would support a ban, she made the choice to smoke and came out as anyone would; DEAD. Few people willingly want to die, but smoke regardless because IT IS THERE RIGHT TO DO SO.

“You, like so many others, are afraid of losing your rights. You seem to not understand that the inability to hurt yourself (or others) with tobacco is actually a gain.” -”Jun”

Well it’s good to see you acknowledge that I, like anyone else of age, have the RIGHT to smoke.

“You are foolish to think that people in America have the right to make choices. People in America, like anywhere else, have the right to follow the law. You make choices from the available pool of allowed actions. Deal with it. It is fair.” -”Jun”

People do have the right to make choices as protected by law, but yes, you are correct; they must also follow the law.
However, there is a legal hierarchy and a university ban is at the very bottom. This “ban” has been instituted by the student senate and president Kennedy; not politicians. The laws of Orono are above the imaginary judicial/congressional system of a public university, the laws of Maine above that, and the laws of the federal government above that. The federal government protects our rights, at least in this case.

“You are the one who has been brainwashed. Your freedoms are allowed you because they serve a greater purpose than you smoking cigarettes. If the scope of your vision is so tiny that the only thing that you can think to do with the bill of rights is fight for your right to blow smoke in my face then you are small.” – “Jun”

You are so ridiculous and ignorant on your own that I don’t even have to respond.

“I am amazed at how often I see a phrase like “get over yourself” pointed in the opposite direction from where it belongs. I wouldn’t use those words, but they do apply to you. You are not so mighty and great as to warrant the privilege to make other people sick with your hobbies.” “-Jun”

You are correct, I don’t have the right to blow smoke in your face but I have the consideration for even the likes of you that I wouldn’t, in any situation. Conversely, YOU are not so mighty that you have the right to control the lives of others.
You don’t have the right to tell me I can’t smoke outdoors, in case you missed the point.

“It is interesting how you thought to use that phrase with me, who wants to protect myself and others, instead of yourself who wants the freedom to do something which hurts others.” -”Jun”

You have the right to protect yourself but not the right to limit MY rights to harm myself.
I believe an excellent example would be the movie “iRobot” that came out a few years ago. Everything we do is harmful to ourselves and/or others so the only thing we can do is be herded and treated like prisoners to protect ourselves from ourselves: no rights at all.
That’s not how it is though, WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE.

“This isn’t about ideals. People are sick and dying, painfully, terribly, from cigarettes. I don’t care about your choice to do harm. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to the issue since I witnessed it firsthand, many times, but that doesn’t make me wrong. You don’t deserve the rights you are ascribing to yourself, no one does. Smoke in your own home if you must. Die with the knowledge that you caused your own painful death, if that is your wish. Smoking is akin to suicide.” -”Jun”

People die from tobacco, stop stating this. If anyone reading this site doesn’t know it by now then I don’t know how they managed to find their way onto the internet and not drool in their shoes. It’s their right to make a choice, whether you like it or not. What you think about my rights is irrelevant; they are there though.
Smoking is suicide, if done continually, and a choice that nobody can say no to. It’s frankly none of your damn business, nor the campus’.
Until banned by federal law, no one under that level has any say.

“Economics aside, nicotine gum is a safer alternative to smoking and it doesn’t hurt another person. If you have healthcare then you should be able to get a prescription for it.” -”Jun”

Hardly. Nicotine gum isn’t worth the foil it’s packaged in. Apparently, we’re all truckers that smoke as hobbyists so we don’t have healthcare, remember?

This is the first comment to make me upset. You are a sick person to relate birth to smoking, as if the two were related in a manner of harm. Birth is the most sacred thing I can think of. You defame life with your ignorance of the meaning of words. You are a fool who clearly knows little.
“-Jun”

Good, glad to see you’re actually movable.
People die in childbirth and related circumstances, same as cigarettes.
Perhaps I am a fool but I know the words of a fool, scratching at nothing, when I see them.
At least I can articulate an argument democratically, comrade.

You talked earlier about gas guzzling cars and their hazards not being relative to smoking. Can you please tell me how cutting off your feet because of trespassing laws is comparable to starting to smoke because of a smoking ban. Maybe if you said you were going to start trespassing because of the unfair law that would make sense. Think before you post a comment.

As a person who lives a ten minute train ride from Manhattan, I can tell you that New York’s proposed smoking ban would not include the whole city, making your Bloomberg comment irrelevant. The ban in New York would only be in city parks making it take no more than a five minute walk to a place you can legally smoke.

Your comment about not having a right but a privilege to live on campus may be false (not positive). I know many schools require Freshman to live on campus their first year and I believe this was the rule when I was a Freshman at the University of Maine.

Jun, You make me sick with your hypocrisy. I am sorry but you tell everyone that their analogies are invalid, but the truth is the analogies that you make are just as stretched and untruthful.

Since it is clear that we disagree so starkly on the issues that a debate would be pretty futile I will only say this:

“Dramatical”?

You, friend, are an idiot.

Are you saying the University of Maine is YOUR land as your post indicates? I thought that the university was a public one, owned primarily by the taxpayers who allow you to sit in an office and trample the rights of others. Aren’t the students and their parents who pay tens of thousands of dollars per year to go to the university the real “owners’? As a university employee, it is you who is owned by those students and parents who pay your salary. Since you do not respect their voices, perhaps you are the one who should go elsewhere.

“Until banned by federal law, no one under that level has any say.”

BAM, you did a really nice job!! Precise, logical and up to the point. Totally agree with you!

There are many inaccuracies in the posts here. Many of you don’t seem to understand the nature of laws and the boundaries between federal, state, municipalities, public and private property.

A few who post here do not want to do what is right, but rather what is easy. It is easy to do nothing. It is right to take steps to improve your health and the general well being of everyone.

You hide behind a slogan of “don’t tread on my rights to make bad decisions.” You readily admit that you are making a bad decision and then expect that everyone fully support your right to do so regardless of how it affects you or the community; the idea is absurd. The saddest thing of all is that many of you who continue to smoke will become another victim of one of the most evil corporations in our history, and you’ll defend their right to kill you slowly, for a fee.

If the university passes a tobacco ban then I’m hopeful that you’ll quit smoking and do what is right, but if you won’t then you’ll have to smoke off campus. At that point it will be up to the town to decide where you can smoke.

I think YOU may have “the nature of laws and the boundaries between federal, state, municipalities, public and private property.” UMaine is a public, land-grant university. It’s public property. Just, for some odd reason, public property that has extra restrictions for some strange reason.

Also, I think it’s humorous that you’re still posting in here. I haven’t checked since this story was published but you think rather than sitting here arguing with a bunch of people who clearly do not and never will share your viewpoint, you might actually do something PRODUCTIVE if you really cared as much as you do about public health and smoker restriction.

“He’s pissing into the wind! How brilliant can he be?”

Don’t tread on my right to make bad decisions, and I promise not to do that to you. I hear lots of hatred and barely disguised anger in Jun’s posts. It’s a bit frightening that someone like that can work at a university. It must be overwhelming to want so badly to control other people’s life choices and have so very little power to do that in the end.

just out for a lark.

You are a pathetic loser.

Seriously, you are.

I’m not upset about it. I just want you to know it.

People used to take their rights seriously. They used to speak out to protect people from violence of discrimination over something like race or gender. Some people still do, but you give activism everywhere a bad name. You are an idiot.

“Don’t tread on my right to make bad decisions, and I promise not to do that to you.”

Oh gee!
Really?
You promise?

This particular smoker can’t die fast enough for me. Puff, puff, puff… the clock’s ticking!
Don’t slow down now, baby!

State government is not real, just an illusion.
Counties do not actually exist.
Municipalities are a lie.

The closest you are ever going to get to the federal government protecting your rights is when you finally lose it and break the law, cracker jack.

Now there are serious stances to take on this issue, the kind that would make for intelligent debate. Unfortunately Jun and everybody else has let this turn into embarrassing drivel. “Puff, puff, puff…don’t slow down now, baby!” This is sick stuff. Please grow up.

You essentially just told someone to go kill themselves. Faster than they were, actually, because their current pace was too slow for you. Because you want them dead.

Thanks for the help, Lauri. From reading your posts, my opinion on smoking has completely changed. I think I’ll throw the rest of my pack into the next trash can I see and start fresh. Maybe someday I can be as pure as you.

…Or be sure to blow a huge cloud of smoke directly into your face if I ever see you.

Ha, Ha, Ha!

Oh, the guilt.

Read the entire post, all the commentary, and you’ll see that I’m quite serious, drivel it is not.

I don’t have any problem letting insanely stubborn people rub themselves out, like they do their butts. I value life and that I’ve made clear. I don’t value all life the same. People who knowingly contradict their own will to live are sick and I can’t help them.

Sometimes the best thing to do with cancerous tissue is to remove it.

No need to feel guilty. Nobody’s disappointed in you, just disgusted.

Disgusted?

Why?

Because I don’t value your life more than you do?
I’m not a doctor, not a saint, not a masochist.

Go ahead and smoke. Smoke a lot. There is no point in trying to convince the addicted.

Be disgusted with yourself if anything.
1: for your vile habit which makes you stink
2: for how little you care about your life
3: for your lack of self control

Just open up that fresh pack of butts, peel off the wrapper, pack it, take a whiff of that sweet unburnt stuff, and then stick it in your mouth, light it up and inhale. Inhale deeply. Take it all it.

Ha, Ha, Ha!
You are so weak.
You’ll die faster.

You’ve at least got until 2012. Don’t waste time.

Those serious stances have already been taken, and returned with the most ridiculous arguments.

Fight fire with fire.

Hahahah, who cares!! The students that do smoke, don’t smoke cigarettes anyway…. HAHAHAHAH…. Get me a pack of kent golden lights!!! NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW…. “i need my nic fix before class so I can smell like an ashtray!!”

That’s the spirit!

I feel like the longer we sit here and argue with Jun, the more obvious it is that she is 7 years old; at least mentally. Good work, I see that there is no reason to worry about YOU threatening my rights.

pas de touché

Jun, you really should see somebody about controlling your hatred and your need to control.

You also might want to put the twinkies down because your excessive weight will create a much greater burden on our fragile health system than a smoker.

Actually I don’t smoke I just think some of your points are kind of disturbing – and also that you’re kinda dumb. I mean, you assumed I smoked just because I thought your wishing death upon people was a little messed up. Stop acting like a child.

Plato once wrote Socrates describing philosophy as “learning how to die.” Maybe smoking cigarettes is a purely philosophical endeavor then? Each smoker really a devout seeker of truth?

Alright, I admit i just wanted to mess with Jun.

If you do work at this university, I hope you get fired. You should never be allowed near young people. You have no concern for anyone’s health as evidenced by your own words. You just want to control. Makes me think of that professor who opened fire and killed her peers during a meeting. YOU are scary stuff.

When you’re young you find yourself trying to open every new door, you always want to know what’s behind the next drawn curtain.

As you get older it happens that one day you suddenly find you’ve reversed direction, that you’re now closing doors and passing by opportunities to try something new and unknown. Because eventually, you realize that there’s more shit out there than there are shovels.

Unfortunately for you, there are those who will also not value the life of the hysterical shrew. That would be you. Surely, if you are educated, you already know that when zealots like you begin experiments in eugenics and sort out which lives are valuable and which are not, the zealot goes out in flames. Eugenics began in earnest in the early part of the 20th century. It ended, at least in the open, with the destruction of the movement in NAZI Germany. As we see from your post, it has come alive again disguised as a “health” movement. It will end again. Thanks though for exposing what you really are.

Jan provides a perfect example of what is wrong with sticking the state’s moralist nose in places it has no right to be. Democracy in government is “of the people” and laws they draft; “serve the people” [all of the people without exclusion] never the other way around, or you are talking about something completely different. Autonomy laws were written after the war to protect us against people who think exactly as she does, that some people are more worthy than others, as long as she is part of the largest crowd. Best babies contests on campus anyone?

If a person chooses to smoke it does not make them any different than anyone else no more or no less worthy of compassion and respect. The situation is no different than the choice to ride a bicycle or drive a car although the smoke produced by a car is a toxic risk to others whereas cigarette smoke never was more than annoying to others. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply ignorant of the facts at hand and should examine the evidence before believing everything you hear in TV commercials.

You can divide people in many ways to promote your personal politics and you should be defended in your rights to personal opinion. When you start dividing people by autonomous choices and divining moralist rules over the dominion of other peoples bodies, your opinions are nothing more than trash talk and hate mongering, to satisfy your own personal and sadistic addictions.

Jun; The others here who see you for what you are, should be commended as parties to the norm in their revulsion. Your problems are much more offensive than tobacco smoke ever was. You are the one who should be banned from campus in place of the people who smoke. At least until you agree to seek treatment, so that no one else is harmed by the belief, that you could ever represent the norm.

I see Jun as the stuck in the 20s Rockefeller disciple of eugenics. The long black dress buttoned up collar and marching boots with a red armband. A bible in one hand and a tambourine in the other. Spreading guilt as her weapon of choice, with verbal emotives and a wagging finger, moral turpitude and juvenile delinquent, in place of the words smoker or drinker?

Yes Jun we all know who you are, the only problem here; is your own life style choices, preaching the virtues of self sanctimony while basking in your own hypocritical denials.

Good luck with that, just stay away from the children. What you have is contageous and very dangerous if it spreads. Seek treatment.

How fitting the captcha verification words below are “cuckoos varsity” There is little doubt who that refers to.

No Johnny the sun does not shine out of the backsides of Public Health prohibitionists, they just think it does.

Sorry for the multiple posts, this one is precious and I had to comment.

Corporate evils? Takes one to know one.

I always say if you want to get to the truth, you have to follow the money.
Jun said;
“The saddest thing of all is that many of you who continue to smoke will become another victim of one of the most evil corporations in our history, and you’ll defend their right to kill you slowly, for a fee.”

As we should, in the name of capitalism and democracy…not to mention personal autonomy. That thing they were talking about when describing “a woman’s right to choose” Jun is obviously anti-abortion. AKA The back alley coat hanger crowd.

The tobacco Industry is no different than any other corporate for profit industry, providing a product in demand, and none of them majored in axe murder 101, such as apparently is the norm, among the cult membership of Public health “Stakeholders”. Such as Jun who seeks death to her enemies. Listed at the world Health Organization and other places, under the heading public health “stakeholder partners” who will profit by support of the “Tobacco Control” social marketing campaign.

The evil empire Luke; The much feared “dark side”.

This would be the same corporation who sells you Kraft Dinner and sponsors Kraft Hockey-ville for little kids?

Peanut butter merchants are going to take over the world?

“They want to kill us all I tell ya”. Jun et al…

Do you know for certain that Jun is the Director of Alcohol and Drugs at this campus?

Do you work at this university? Did you work to establish the smoking ban?

I never met either of my great grandfathers. Its too bad Tobacco Control and Public Health organizations weren’t around sooner, to prevent them and millions of others from making the mistakes that undoubtedly led to their demise.
We could be out in the yard playing tackle football or road hockey right now, if only they knew the secrets Public Health knows.

Oh wait now! Public Health were around weren’t they?

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v31/n1/full/ng0502-17.html

“Social essentialism has always been with us, as The Unfit makes abundantly clear. Clusters of individuals sharing an attribute such as color, background or belief are lumped into the same mental category, onto which are projected the qualities most feared or despised by rival groups. Any awareness of the enormous range of appearance, thought and temperament that exists in any human group is thus replaced by a crude, usually ugly, caricature.

Not surprisingly, social essentialism has furnished excusatory captions to many of humanity’s most barbaric actions against the weak and friendless—from the ‘bestial’ aborigines of Victorian propaganda, to the ‘subversive’ Jew of Nazi ideology. This kind of dehumanization typically accompanies a withdrawal of compassion. It also allows unspeakable actions to be taken against masses of people without the perpetrators’ sense of themselves as moral beings and model citizens ever being seriously troubled.”

They have always been there.

I find it very difficult to believe that Jun is Lauri. I have talked with Lauri before and I do not see her as the type to sit on a computer and argue with students over this topic. Just throwing in my two cents. And I am not sticking up for Jun by the way I am very against the smoking ban on campus.

http://newyorkcity.injuryboard.com/defective-and-dangerous-products/study-finds-lingering-nicotine-on-smoker-clothes-car-and-home-is-health-hazard-especially-to-children.aspx?googleid=278100

It is about health.
It is clear that smoking outside impacts the health of those around you. The only point that any of you have to make is that you don’t care about anyone, not even yourselves.

It is easy to not worry about your quote unquote rights to a cigarette. Hopefully soon, beyond not smoking on campus, we’ll be free of you entirely!