One of the hot button issues this semester has been whether or not smoking should be banned on campus. On the forefront of the anti-smoking machine are President Jo Ann Gora and Provost Terry King as well as various campus groups. The campus group that seems to be working the hardest toward making Ball State University smoke-free is Smokefree Indiana.
Besides general education to students and faculty, Smokefree Indiana has been working diligently to bring speakers and experts to campus. The group is also lobbying various campus government organizations and attempting to collect the 8,000 to 10,000 student signatures needed to make their attempts worthwhile. In essence, the members of Smokefree Indiana are the main student leaders in the fight against smoking on campus. But are they fighting fair? Although Smokefree Indiana's agenda may seem appealing, in all actuality, it has a dark underbelly.
When reviewing several of their handouts, one can find several skewed "stats" passed off as fact. One of their handouts cites reasons why Ball State shouldn't add ashtrays near bus stops, an idea that had been proposed to help cut down on cigarette butt litter on campus. In that handout, they claim that "people are more likely to light up their cigarettes when they see ashtrays just as if they automatically think that the location is made for smokers," as if smokers are robots who must smoke when near ashtrays. I'd like to think the smokers on campus deserve more credit than that.
In their handout entitled "21 reasons why BSU should go smokefree," Smokefree Indiana makes several claims about tobacco use and what it leads to. They state that tobacco users are more likely to develop mental illnesses, suicidal tendencies, participate in high risk sexual behaviors, have two or more sexual partners in the last month and have grade point averages lower than high risk drinkers. They go on to say that tobacco users are 3.6 times more likely to engage in high-risk drinking, 4.6 times more likely to engage in marijuana use and seven times more likely to abuse or become addicted to illicit drugs. These claims certainly seem far skewed from the truth.
Banning smoking is a serious enough issue that affects the bulk of campus in one form or another that it doesn't need false stats to be passed off as truths, especially when those "truths" are saying that smoking causes people to become drug addicted, alcoholic, suicidal, promiscuous, partying college dropouts.
In this debate over smoking on campus, let's make it about fact, not smearing. Let the voices of those on each side of the aisle be heard. If you personally are so motivated enough to voice your opinion one way or the other then do so through the Daily News, tell a University Senate or Student Government Association member or attend a public forum such as the one going on with President Gora at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in Cooper 368. No matter your method, your voice can be heard, but only if you choose to speak it.
With this issue being as big as it is, everyone should speak up, present fact, play clean and fight fair. Smearing a major cross section of society is best suited for a 4th grade playground, not an institute of higher learning such as Ball State.
But hey, what do I know? I'm the one defending the drug addicted, alcoholic, suicidal, promiscuous, partying college dropouts.
Write to Franklin at frhood@bsu.edu
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