Editorials |
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Smoking Ban at Floyd and Cartersville accomplishes nothing
The next time you enter a building on the Floyd or Cartersville campus, take a look at the ground. Without fail, it will be littered with cigarette butts. When you drive onto campus, the first sign that you see reads, "Georgia Highlands College is a tobacco free campus." The ground is littered with cigarette butts as there is not a single ashtray on campus. Students and faculty are going to smoke cigarettes. Did the college administration seriously expect smokers who attend GHC to just go without during the entire school day? The students on the GHC campus who smoke are stuck between a rock and a hard place; simply by lighting up they are violating an unenforceable rule that marginalizes them for engaging in a legal activity. If GHC were to designate a single area on each campus as a smoking area and supply that area with ashtrays, smokers would have a place to smoke that is not near the entrances to the buildings. The simple fact is that college students are going smoke, so why not give them a place to do it away from the main buildings? Why not supply that place with ashtrays so that smokers are not forced to litter? If administration enacted the smoking ban because they are concerned with appearances, the smoking ban means that cigarette butts will be scattered all around campus. How does that help the college's appearance? Would it not look better to keep the smoking in one place on each campus and keep the ground free of cigarette butts? Georgia Highlands is a diverse, vibrant institution that represents a cross section of each community where it exists. Smokers are always going to be a presence on campus. It is infinitely more logical to deal with this issue in a manner that acknowledges the truth rather than expects the impossible. This publication is the voice of the students on each GHC campus. As such, it requires input from the larger college community. Please, let us know what is on your minds. E-mail us at: [email protected] |