I am in full support of a smoking ban in all academic areas on the UW-Platteville campus. I do not have a problem with smokers in general; I have a problem with smoke. Even walking down the sidewalk into a cloud of smoke causes me to cough and gag. As far as arguments for allowing smoking, they simply do not make sense, and some are quite insulting. To say that hundreds of people would or might leave UW-P because they could not smoke is one of the worst insults ever. If that is true, the only reason people go to this school is because they can smoke, and I am not sure I want them here. Another argument is that a fine is simply too much for a struggling college student. They should not be expected to pay that much, because they could not follow the rules. You might have a reason to complain if you had to pay a fee to be allowed to smoke, but the intent is to get smokers to comply with the rules. One final argument given is that it is unreasonable to ask a faculty member to leave the campus or the academic area to do their smoking between classes. The eight minutes between classes are not designed as a smoke break; they are to give students and faculty time to move from one class to the next. As far as it being reasonable to make them leave campus to smoke during their breaks, welcome to the real world; everyone has to do that.

George Bauer
Building Construction
Management