There used to be a time when people didn’t know smoking was bad for them.

In 2004, information on the harm involved with smoking, as well as help on how to quit, are both readily available. One would think there’s nothing smokers could process that would leave them at all inclined to puff their lives away.

One would be right-smoking, like any self-destructive habit, is difficult to consider at all. As opposed to thinking about smoking, smokers simply smoke. Big Tobacco, now barred from advertising or appealing toward minors in any way, has been targeting college students more and more in recent years.

A combination of stress, emotional intensity and convenience make it simple for college students to consider, or not consider, smoking and what it could do for/to them.

The simple fact of the matter is that tobacco manufacturers, like gun manufacturers, make money off murdering people-or rather, people murdering themselves and each other. Secondhand smoke is just as dangerous (and just as accepted) as people sucking down smoke firsthand. Like somebody firing a gun, an innocent bystander is just that-someone who’s not involved in said smoker’s shootout with themselves.

On the same token, smokers are people, too. Harassing, excluding and being impolite to smokers is polluting the air with another kind of deadly poison: impatience, frustration and hostility.

More than anything, smokers and non-smokers alike need to give each other consideration for their respective personal preferences in order to make any headway.

Not wanting to have someone else’s habit inflicted upon you is only one side-being constantly bombarded with other people’s issues against a physically, emotionally and psychologically addicting habit is certainly another.

Yet, by working together, non-smokers and smokers alike can put the “butt out” on Big Tobacco. Groups like The Tobacco Taskforce, run by U Students, are there to support people willing and ready to quit smoking.

Even groups like the LGBT Resource Center, who don’t have direct interests in the non-smoking agenda, take a stand and try to help shows just how serious smoking-or not smoking-is.

Everyone could benefit from efforts such as the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smoke-Out. By quitting, America will save money, time and lives.

It’s a win-win situation. Pass on the puffing and get with some real air.