The last few months have seen important victories for personal liberty in America. Marijuana is now semi-legal in Colorado and Washington, a ban on large soft drinks was struck down in New York, and support for gay marriage is rising across the country.
That’s why it’s sad to see UCLA reversing the trend of increasing freedom by banning tobacco products from campus.
The ban, which goes into effect on the 22nd of this month, is not chiefly about reducing secondhand smoke. That is hardly a problem on a 419-acre campus where smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of most doors and windows.
Neither would concern about secondhand smoke justify banning oral tobacco, e-cigarettes or hookahs. What this ban really represents is an exercise in paternalism. It is about the UC administration forcing us to behave in a way that it deems better for us, a privilege that used to be reserved for parents and nannies.
The administration makes no apology for this restriction of personal liberty. Linda Sarna, chair of the Tobacco-Free Steering Committee, argued in a submission to the Daily Bruin that “this is not about ‘individual choice,’ as some have suggested. Millions of people become addicted because of campaign efforts by the tobacco industry, not through individual decisions.”
I’m not sure how advertising campaigns nullify individual choice. If they did, my apartment would be knee-deep in Snuggies, ShamWows and Shake Weights. On the other hand, it is true that the addictive properties of nicotine can make it difficult for many smokers to quit. But in that case, the obvious solution is to provide support for those interested in quitting – not to take away everyone’s freedom to smoke.
It is in fact quite ironic to accuse tobacco companies of undermining individual choice and then to impose a ban that removes all choice whatsoever. Unfortunately, the irony is lost on the administration. When he first announced the ban, Chancellor Gene Block said that it “was a particularly easy choice for you because I didn’t give you a choice, I made the choice, because I decided that was something we absolutely had to do.”
There’s no credible justification for Block, Sarna or anyone else in the UC system to make such paternalistic decisions for us.
Tobacco is legal in the United States and UCLA is a public institution, so why should it be prohibited here? The ban implies that Bruins are less capable than the average person of making informed choices about how to lead their lives. Frankly, that’s insulting.
The ban on tobacco will open the door for more restrictions on our personal lives.
In a letter to the campus community, Block wrote that “becoming tobacco-free is integral to our ultimate goal of becoming the healthiest college campus in the country.” The administration obviously does not regard our liberty as an obstacle to that goal.
At a time when much of the country is moving forward in the direction of personal liberty, banning tobacco at UCLA is a disappointing step backward.
Rohlfs is a third-year political science student and member of Young Americans for Liberty at UCLA.
Why should your “personal liberty” to smoke out-weigh mine to breathe fresh(er) air?
I’m all in favor of people having the rights to do to themselves as they wish.. as long as it does not affect me. Smoke all you want, in your car / home with windows closed.
Now, UCLA’s broad tobacco ban – including smoke-free products – may well be over-reaching in attempting to restrict personal choices which *don’t* affect others. But anything which reduces second-hand smoke – ever walk up the steps to Powell? – is an important step in the right direction.
There’s absolutely no evidence (scientifically or logically) to show that inhaling a whiff of tobacco smoke every now and then is going to affect you negatively. Just think about it – how much smoke do you inhale from walking by a group of smokers? Even if you strolled by taking in a huge, deep breath, you’d not even inhale the equivalent of one drag off a cigarette. Most smokers smoke 10-20 entire cigarettes DAILY, and even then they’re generally not dropping dead until much later in their life when their lungs/throat/whatever finally give up on them. Do you hold your breath every time you enter a parking garage? Because there are far more dangerous chemical compounds flying about in there than there are from some guy having a cigarette vaguely near you in the open air. Maybe a ban on cars should be next.
So no, people smoking outside does not affect your health. You just don’t like the smell. That’s fine, it’s not a great smell, but that’s not a good reason to dictate what people can and can’t do simply because you or even a majority don’t like it. That attitude has never, ever led to a positive change, it’s completely selfish.
For those of us with asthma and related conditions, even a few breaths of secondhand smoke can be debilitating. In civilized society, we constantly make educated compromises about competing freedoms of different members of society. Championing one freedom over another is simply taking sides, not championing freedom itself.
Excellent article, but you’re wasting your breath (no pun intended) on this campus. By the time the paternalists are done, we’ll have zero fast food on campus (obesity is a killer!), nothing with a sharp edge (cuts! owwie!), and supervised sex to make sure you wrap it up.
Laugh now, but you’ll be thanking your sex monitor when their benevolent paternalism saves you from an STD!
Well, I mean, to be fair, most of the tuition is paid by the parents after all? Are they just money bags, without a say in anything at all? I’m just saying. I mean I hate paternalism just as much as the next guy. Whatever.
People who FIGHT to smoke cigarettes on a University campus are losers. (sorry~) There are things to fight about you guys. This is NOT ONE OF THEM.
What bothers me most about the policy is the extreme measure it is taking with a very broad and essentially zero-tolerance ban. I am a senior on campus and have been a regular smoker since I came to UCLA almost four years ago. I understand the motivation behind this measure but strongly disagree with its execution. Whenever I smoke on campus, I try to make a conscious effort to stay away from large crowds as much as possible. If I am studying at the library, I’ll smoke off to the side outside rather that front and center at the steps of Powell or YRL. I don’t light up and smoke at the door of a building or stroll down Bruin Walk or Bruin Plaza with a lit cigarette. I think that is totally inconsiderate and believe it is that alternative kind of extreme behavior that gives smokers on campus a bad enough reputation to motivate a measure like this.
However, a ban on all tobacco products across campus is equally inconsiderate. I am now being told that I can’t step outside a PUBLIC library I have been cooped up in all day and night for a five minute smoke break when I am not even bothering anyone? If these are public buildings where any ordinary taxpayer or CA resident can come in, utilize university resources, and take up limited study space that is otherwise used by students paying full tuition, why can’t I go outside and smoke in SOME DESIGNATED AREA that is a reasonable distance from the main entrance?
I think your point resonates the most when chewing tobacco and e-cigarettes are considered. I don’t chew tobacco and I am pretty sure it is going to be virtually impossible for officials to enforce the ban in that regard, but the principle of them banning chewing products alone undermines the whole “second hand smoke” argument. How is any harm being done to someone who chooses not to consume tobacco if they see another doing it? The same is true with odorless and tobacco-free cigarettes.
This opinion article might not change anything, but I commend you for making these points. It is very clear that the whole concern for second-hand smoke is a poorly orchestrated facade for the real “paternalistic” agenda the administration is pushing forward.
Tobacco is treated heavily with chemicals these days. It’s not like in the 1600’s when Virginia Company first settled the slave plantation on the east coast and tobacco was more pure.
One way to see it, in order to make a “free choice”, you have to have made the choice to smoke while you are “free” from any addictions, peer pressure, social pressure, etc. It must be a choice that is made out of reason. Since most UG’s are at UCLA to gain more of that reason, most likely any choice to smoke wouldn’t be a truly “free” choice anyway until the individual is free from the addiction, and isn’t smoking for any other reason except for that it is the morally correct thing to do as a human being. This is what it means to make a “free” choice, and this is what “freedom” is all about. It isn’t just about doing whatever the heck you want. That’s not freedom, that is called “being-an-idiot”.
bunch a crap, maxwell.
So you have a right to “personal liberty” that lets you get and give cancer, but I don’t have the “personal liberty” to marry the person I love and be entitled to the governmental benefits thereof?
I think you may have misinterpreted the author. He stated “support for gay marriage is rising across the country” as an example of an “important victory” for “personal liberty.” The point he was trying to make is that increasing awareness for gay rights along with the legalization of marijuana in CO and WA are examples of increasing liberties while this ban is (unfortunately) doing the opposite.
For the record, I’m going to miss the people who used to smoke outside of Powell. It was like an olfactory reminder, “Just wait, in a few months you’ll be in Vegas casino, but for now, study…”
I don’t smoke, and I completely agree with this article. The decision to ban smoking EVERYWHERE on campus is a total overreaction. The opinion that people shouldn’t smoke, say, in front of Powell is not one based in logic. Inhaling one breath of second hand smoke in your day has 0 effect on your health. It is continued exposure to secondhand smoke that is dangerous, such as that inhaled by the child of a smoking parent. Banning smoking everywhere on campus is like banning advertisements with gay couples in them because the majority things it is icky. The obvious compromise was to have designated smoking areas on campus that are removed from the high traffic areas, but instead UCLA decided to outright ban all tobacco products. They then implicitly (and almost explicitly) encouraged anyone on campus who sees someone smoking to give them the stink eye and harass them for doing so. All the arguments I have heard in support of this were based on the health of those who are exposed to second hand smoke. Why, then, did UCLA decide to ban chewing tobacco as well? And wouldn’t designated smoking spots removed from dense areas be a more fair way to address that issue?
I think the most insulting part of this ban is that it was pushed through by the massive support of 18-25 year old college students, who for some reason think it’s okay to tell every single faculty and staff member, including Professors, Administrators, Janitors, Carpenters/Shops, and Police, that they are subject to the collective will of people less than half their age who think they know better.
Well, Plato wanted to ban Homer, who came long before Plato. I suppose you think that Plato is wrong about this? He also thinks that the masses are ignorant and don’t know what is good for themselves and make bad choices for themselves. Do you think Plato is wrong about this too? I tend to agree that Plato is probably right, and the masses don’t know what is fine and good. If they did, they wouldn’t be smoking chemical-laden cigarettes that are saturated with urine, formaldehyde, and god knows what else.
I don’t see any sufficiently good reason why Homer should have been banned. In fact, that’s exactly the kind of thinking I’m arguing against. I don’t think very many people exist today who believe that smoking is not harmful to one’s health. They all choose to continue smoking, whether or not they are influenced by addiction is irrelevant; people quit smoking all the time. It is not impossible to quit smoking, it just takes a good reason. For most people, “my health” is not a good enough reason. Whether conscious or unconscious, they make the decision to smoke at the expense of their health. That might be a bad tradeoff for you or me, but for them it is apparently not. Trying to force people to make the decisions you want them to make because you think you know better is not only arrogant, it is against freedom.
And this ban does not only affect students who will only be here for a few years, as you have stated in another of your comments. This affects anyone who works at UCLA. Should they quit their job because they don’t want to quit smoking? You profess to care about these faceless masses so much, that you are okay with forcing them to do something that will better their health, yet you force them to make a choice that could potentially ruin their livelihood.
Let people make their own decisions. Not everyone has the same viewpoint as you. Just because you quit smoking (as you stated, because you had a good enough reason to) doesn’t mean everyone else wants to.
Let
Remember, being at UCLA is about being here to learn something. It means being open to different ways of doing things — maybe, even quitting smoking for a while, and see how that feels on you. It’s just a policy, and perhaps instead of whining about how “unfair” it is, or how hard it is, maybe it could be a kind of personal challenge. It’s a small one on the outside, but I am sure it is a big one on the inside, and it is these sorts of challenges that build character and help us to discover what each of us are capable of.
I quit, too.
Just try it, to see if you could even do it. The more smokers make a big deal out of it, actually it makes me feel like I did something really HUGE and DIFFICULT. I didn’t really have a hard time at all, because there was a reason why I quit (a reason that mattered to me enough), so it wasn’t a very big challenge for me. But, the way that this is becoming an “issue” because people just can’t stop — I mean, it’s such a small thing, it’s not even worth FIGHTING about — I feel like I did something Herculean for quitting.
Hopefully gas powered leaf blowers are banned as well. They pollute 80:1 more than a car and there is no escaping their noise and 2nd hand smoke. How many cigarettes = 80 automobiles? If UCLA allows gas blowers then they are defacto climate science deniers. Tell your parents to stop their gardeners from using them. The single most effective thing a mere mortal can do to help the planet.