It clings to your clothes and catches in your throat, you look around for the culprit producing those gray toxic wisps of air. Smoker here, smoker there and never quite all the way off the brick path. Cigarette butts litter the ground and you cannot seem to walk from one end of campus to the other without passing through a haze of carcinogens. What happened to our “smoke-free” DU? A little mutual respect by the smoking community would be appreciated by all of DU’s non-smoking members here.
In any case, why are young people in this day and age still attracted to smoking despite study upon study demonstrating the detrimental effects? Clearly, humans are hardwired to make bad decisions and whether or not we learn from them is a coin toss. Our irrepressible optimism is both the charm and the demise of our species.
An article published this past Oct. 19 in The New York Times articulated the reason for and the results of making bad decisions. We obstinately march forward, disregarding that information that contradicts our beliefs, lifestyle or hopes. This is both stubbornness and optimism.
As an optimist myself, I see the ease, comfort and happiness this can bring to one’s life. But in the face of statistics, studies and countless commercials that scare the willies out of me, I never intend to smoke, text and drive or meet strangers online.
CDC studies demonstrate that smoking can cause cancer, heart disease, strokes and lung diseases. For every individual that actually dies from smoking another twenty individuals are battling some smoking-related illness.
On average, it decreases your lifespan by ten years. Studies by the National Institutes of Health have determined that each individual cigarette, on average, shortens your life by eleven minutes.
But you’ve seen some old woman smoking like a chimney and she looks fine. It won’t be you on one of those commercials talking through a mechanical voice box.
Do not live your life paranoid because that certainly does not do any good, but do not walk into a trap you were preemptively warned about. Do not disregard the irrefutable facts. Do not play into the belief of human indestructibility; it just might kill you. And what is even scarier, it could kill countless others.
Smokers don’t mean to harm others, but an estimated 49,000 deaths each year are caused by exposure to secondhand smoke. You do not live in a bubble; your impacts have far-reaching repercussions.
DU implemented a smoking ban in January of 2010 for a reason. Honor the ban and respect others, smoke off the brick. If you can, go the extra mile and empower yourself to stop smoking altogether.
