Dear Editor,
This is in response to Marianne Steffey’s opinion about bans on indoor smoking:
Your opinion moved me so much that I felt compelled to reply to several remarks made in your column.
I should tell you up front, I am a smoker and have been for many years. I am also a new student to ETSU.
The biggest part of your article rested on freedom of choice.
The fact of the matter is, it was more about the freedom of choice for smokers than that of non-smokers. You carefully left out an entire group of people who are growing by leaps and bounds from the smokers that are quitting.
Non-smokers and ex-smokers alike have just as much freedom of choice as any smoker does in this day in age. Their issues are their health and the health of their children.
Why should they subject their lungs to your quenching need for a cigarette?
Even with designated smoking areas, there is no guarantee that the smoke won’t wander aimlessly to an area where non-smokers congregate. When in an enclosed area, the smoke will go wherever there is the least amount of resistance.
When you go to a place of your choosing, you expect to be able to smoke in that place. Shouldn’t a non-smoker be able to go to the same place and not have to be confronted with a room full of oppressive smoke? Are their rights any less than your need to puff on a cigarette?
The restaurant where you work, which has ruled its employees are not allowed to smoke on the property, is right. The owners have the right to establish those kinds of rules for their employees.
You will find in the world today, many companies and businesses have a certain image they want to be able to maintain for the consumers of their products.
Having an employee loitering outside the door smoking, does not give the kind of image a business owner wants in order to draw in more customers.
It was right for you to walk across the street to smoke.
You were upset that you had to walk across the street to do it even though your boss has the right to lay these rules at his/her discretion.
It was an effort on your part to do so and it had nothing to do with principle.
If you want to try to alleviate the situation with your supervisor, I would suggest working on a compromise to ensure the safety of the employees and not to thoughtlessly walk out of a building with a thousand dollars on your person.
You have made this more of an issue because you have to do a little extra to get your cigarette.
It’s not about smoker’s rights verses non-smoker’s rights. It’s about seeing to the health and well-being of those who do not smoke.
As it is, the non-smoking population is growing steadily and as a smoker, you will have to make adjustments when in public.
The effects of second-hand smoke have been made clear by study after study.
The smoke will not stay in your personal space. It will go to those people who do not want to inhale it and contaminate their own lungs.
They have just as much right to be in a smoke-free establishment as you have to be in a smoke-filled one.
Your entire case for smokers comes off more like a little girl stomping her foot because she didn’t get the doll she wanted for Christmas.
As a smoker myself, that kind of help for our rights we don’t need.
People are seeing just how devastating smoking and second-hand smoke are.
Companies, businesses and even colleges like ETSU know that while they can’t control the personal choices of people like you and me, they can help those that make the choice not to smoke.
The minority will have to give way to the majority. It is the way of the world.
Cynthia Hocchalter

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