Editor:
The U should leave the cigarette smokers alone and stop pandering to the lies and fabrications of the anti-tobacco jihadists.
We get it — you don’t like smoking. So what? There are plenty of things people don’t like. That doesn’t give the U the right to exclude these people from the federally protected activity of attending school.
Anti-smokers’ health is no more at risk from my smoking, even in a closed room, than mine is from their auto exhaust at many locations on campus. There is no such thing as a right to a healthy environment; the law doesn’t say that.
As a point of fact (something jihadists loathe almost as much as cigarettes), the one time Congress considered such a right, in the original draft of the National Environmental Policy Act, “right” was the only word edited out and replaced with “shall enjoy.” That is a huge legal difference.
Jihadists need to stop laying claim to something that doesn’t exist, and if the U chooses to accommodate them, cigarette smokers should sue the U under the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The jihadists should stop lying to themselves about ETS; your beloved EPA Report is no less scientific truth twisting than what the tobacco industry did in the 1960s, and that’s not my opinion — that’s the legally binding opinion of the 6th Circuit Court in the 92-page Osteen decision.
There is a reason there is no federal law governing tobacco smoke. It’s because the EPA would have to apply the same statistical standard they apply to all other pollutants, and if they did, they couldn’t make the false claim they do about 3,000 deaths per year from ETS. This isn’t my opinion; it’s the court’s. This issue isn’t about health; it’s about the tyranny of the majority, something universities have no right to accommodate.
Cigarette smokers need to stop rolling over for the jihadists and start fighting back. If you ban the smokes, you had better ban the cars, too, or face a civil rights suit the U can’t win.
Brian WilliamsAlumnus ’07