Brook Clairmount

 

Maybe I’m just being naïve, but I thought that when I moved from the widely varied population of high school to the relatively homogenous grouping of intelligent students at university, the students as a whole would make smarter choices.

It baffles me that so many smart people, people who clearly have the ability to understand the consequences of their actions, still smoke. There’s no high from smoking (or at least so I’ve heard; it’s not like smoking pot or other drugs), and there’s nothing attractive about coughing smoke at everyone within a ten foot radius. So, what’s the appeal?

Don’t give me the addiction crap–our generation has grown up hearing about the effects of smoking. Everyone smoking at McMaster made the choice to light up a cigarette and knowingly infuse their lungs with tar and cancerous chemicals.

That wouldn’t even bother me, except it’s my lungs you’re infusing with tar and cancerous chemicals, too. Personally, I couldn’t care less if someone wants to go and smoke in some far off corner where non-smokers aren’t affected. We’re all adults, so the decisions we make are our own business. What irks me is having to walk through a cloud of smoke to get to class. I don’t have the ability to make a decision to not inhale.

I was used to the smokers in high school–you know, the ones who always had something lit between their fingers. Quite a few of them are still in high school. But university students (especially ones with enough intelligence to get into a university as prestigious as Mac) consciously choosing to do the same is something that will take me some time to wrap my mind around.

And in the mean time, please try to keep your second hand smoke away from me.

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