As someone who grew up in this city and who has a sister who went to college years before I did, I visited LSU’s campus quite a few times before I enrolled. I always loved the campus atmosphere: everyone was on their own little island, minding their own business. It was my first exposure to people around my age who had the complete freedom of personal choice — or at least the illusion of it.
I used to feel so mature sitting in the quad reading a book and smoking a cigarette in utter peace. No one looked at me. No one said anything to me. No one cared.
Around two years ago, LSU and many other universities enacted no smoking policies, which banned not only tobacco, but also vapes and e-cigarettes.
The romantic idea I had of college never included a no smoking policy. Honestly, part of the romance was the ability to have a cigarette between my classes, or whenever I preferred. It was college, and no one was supposed to tell me what to do anymore.
Once I got here, I realized that people had found their own way around the rule, whether it was hiding behind buildings, joining the giant group of smokers in front of Middleton Library or just blatantly smoking anyway.
But it just didn’t feel the same anymore. Now, when I sit in the quad and smoke a cigarette, I get the panicky feeling that children get when they’re doing something wrong.
There are many students who would say that smoking cigarettes is wrong. I don’t disagree. It’s common knowledge that cigarettes are destructive to your health and the health of the people around you. They are also extremely addictive.
So why do people still smoke cigarettes?
The perception that people smoke cigarettes to fulfill a certain image or to be “cool” is highly naive. That might have been the case 20 or 30 years ago when we weren’t fully conscious of the negative effects of smoking. Now, most smokers are aware that it is no longer a socially acceptable act.
The looks you get from peers and other passersby is enough to make you ashamed of yourself as a smoker. Public attitude toward smoking has dramatically shifted and successfully made addicts feel even worse about themselves. Apparently, that’s what non-smokers, and the government, call progress.
Sure, there are kids who first get to college, turn 18 and go wild smoking cigarettes because their friends do it. Eventually, it goes from social smoking to a highly addictive habit.
Addiction. It’s the blanket we use to comfort ourselves after a long day. It’s an ironic sense of control over at least one aspect of our life when everything else doesn’t go right.
Edgar Allan Poe said, “I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge.”
Why are our peers so willing to acknowledge cigarettes’ adictiveness without giving credit to those who are addicted? The reason people smoke is simple. Once you start, stopping is an incredible hurdle to jump. Addiction wouldn’t be such an economic profit if it wasn’t one of the most vulnerable human flaws.
The way I see it, we pay thousands of dollars in tuition to be at a university. If we pay all of this money to be here, why don’t we deserve the right to smoke while on campus?
I agree that we all breathe the same air, and students and faculty don’t want to be exposed to harmful air, but the solution is to designate smoking areas. It works in airports, venues and hotels.
College is stressful. Students are going to smoke cigarettes. They relieve stress effectively for some of us. Signs that say smoking isn’t allowed won’t change the body chemistry of someone who’s addicted to nicotine. They only increase the atmosphere of rejection and judgment toward smokers and ignore the reality of the problem, which is not an effective solution.
Personal choice is a freedom and a responsibility. Legally taking away our right to choose doesn’t help people act responsibly. Universities should understand and recognize our freedom to make decisions that aren’t necessarily the best for us.
Creating designated smoking areas gives us the ability to choose and deal with the consequences without affecting our peers. But if the university won’t do it for us, the front of Middleton is proof that we’ll create choice ourselves, and we’ll do it together.
Anjana Nair is an 18-year-old international studies sophomore from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.