Your headline, “Proposed smoking policy dismays staff” (Mar.3) suggests opposition to a “no-smoking” policy is widespread. In fact, it is not.

Ms. Strink, president of the operating staff council, who is cited in your article, has already registered the complaints of the smokers’ lobby in Northern Today (Feb.22).

Do smokers have a “right” to impair the health of non-smokers by thoughtlessly and senselessly filling the air we breathe with gases released in the process of smoking?

These “rights”, being without legal foundation, are non-existent. If smokers believe that such “rights” indeed exist, let them substantiate these “rights” by legal action. We shall not, of course, see this come to pass because this clamor of die-hard smokers about “rights”, and “fair treatment” is merely the voice of the junkie crying out for more nicotine.

The protests about “unfair” treatment constitute a prime example of how unfair smokers truly are, both to themselves and to their non-smoking fellow individuals. They know very well that smoking constitutes a serious health hazard, yet they indulge in such sophistries as accusing us of being “unfair” to them and thereby try to coerce us into providing social support for a drug habit that has no rational basis.

It should be obvious that the non-smoker does not smoke because he or she does not want to smoke, and the desire, not to smoke, specifically includes avoidance of smokers’ exhaust.

Smokers nevertheless continue to smoke inside buildings. In so doing, they incorporate the essence of bad manners, because they know that non-smokers as a group and as individuals do not like to smell or inhale smoke.

Smokers use the increasingly narrow margin of traditional permissiveness with regard to this particular habit to justify their nicotine addiction.

We do smokers no favor by providing them with a socially acceptable milieu in which to exercise their socially offensive, socially expensive, and self-destructive habit. Surely, if we are reasonable, we shall not willingly make it easier for the alcoholic or the cocaine addict.

We cannot agree a no-smoking policy would abuse the “rights” of smokers. On the contrary, if we fail to oppose smoking, we shall not only have acted irrationally, with disregard for the vast majority of the university community, but become willing accomplices in encouraging smokers to continue in their own self-destruction.

Marvin A. Powell

professor

ancient history