Let’s talk about DU’s planned change for the smoking policy. As of now, the policy requires smokers to stand 25 feet from a building. In January, though, DU will become a tobacco-free campus. At first glance, this sounds reasonable and perhaps even progressively healthy, but what, in actuality, are the reasons which have dictated such a change?

As a chronic asthmatic I was delighted when Colorado banned indoor smoking, in most public places, thus preventing exposure to second-hand smoke.

As a private institution, DU has every legal right to ban smoking and is certainly not doing anything “wrong” morally.  Still, what exactly is the point?

What outcome will this new ban create other than pushing groups of smokers onto the front lawns and sidewalks of the surrounding neighbors?

What about the potential danger to a student who must leave the campus at night to have a cigarette on a deserted street?

Here’s another scenario. If pushed off campus, it is probable that smokers will congregate in smoking areas, and what was once a dispersed group of individuals becomes a series of clumps– clumps that are now forced to form in front of someone’s house.

When neighborhood meetings were held in those areas that surround DU, residents expressed frustration with DU’s new policy. Neighbors think DU is simply pushing its problem off campus, instead of dealing with it. They have a point.

The smoking ban will simply punish smokers. So, two questions: Will this stop smokers from smoking? And is DU supposed to monitor every unhealthy habit students have?

Banning smoking isn’t immoral, and perhaps isn’t even a terrible ruling, it is simply an unnecessary one that will aggravate smokers and DU’s neighbors alike, leaving the rest of us virtually unaffected.