Exactly 11 months ago today, I quit smoking. Ten years of filling my lungs with smooth and satisfying charcoal-filtered smoke had taken its toll on my health.

At various jobs over the decade, my lungs also were subjected to airborne kitchen grease, diesel fumes, the wonderful smell of xylene-based cleansers and finely powdered plastic dyes. There’s nothing like blowing blue and purple out of your nose after an eight-hour night shift and wondering if it’s healthy.

The DeKalb City Council passed a smoking ban 5-2 Monday; what they forgot however, was to ban everything else.

Of course, local health departments and the Occupational Safety and Health Act already regulate many of the job hazards listed above, and these have changed practices in the American workplace in the last 50 years. I remember a former boss telling stories of the old days, when they used to make 100 pizzas an hour, cigarettes hanging from their mouths the whole time.

At the council meeting Monday, Third Ward Alderman Steve Kapitan said the employee health issues swayed his vote. He said people should not have to face the choice of working or not working based on the presence of tobacco smoke. However, Kapitan and the rest of the council omitted the possibility that DeKalb might have other disagreeable environments.

Crusading under the health flag, the city council should ban traffic next. Riding a bike down Lincoln Highway can be hazardous; the ban on sidewalk riding puts bicyclists in the street, and diesel trucks often sit at the stoplights waiting for trains to pass.

If you’ve ever inhaled a blast of truck exhaust, you know how disagreeable it can be as you mourn your pulmonary health.

But why stop there? After all, “healthy” is a term open to interpretation. Health comes in various forms: physical health, mental health, emotional health and even spiritual health.

Last week, at 8:30 on the groggiest of mornings, I hopped an overcrowded bus to class. Finding a seat by a stroke of pure luck, I sat next to a crowd of pajama-dressed neighbors. The driver turned up the stereo to the point where the over-capacity passengers could not ignore the lyrics: “I’m in love with a stripper … I’m in love with a stripper … “

Talk about inappropriate timing. My nervousness level shot up, my heart started racing — not because I was excited, but because my eyes could not avoid coming in contact with the mob of people surrounding me.

I tried to block it out, but I couldn’t help wondering what the women thought: Is he staring at me? Is he a pervert? Does he think that I’m HIS stripper?

Paranoid? A little. However, this music affected my mental health and well-being. I should not have to ride the bus and endure listening to explicit music on a public transportation route. I should not have to lose my mental health because of sexual thought pollution I did not choose to hear.

If we are going to allow smoking regulations based on physical “health,” we may as well allow the regulation of everything else.