Remember when President Marx sent us an e-mail about the smoking ban, and announced that smoking would not be allowed inside any College buildings, including dorms? There was a lot of outcry at the time, focusing on complaints like, "The students weren't consulted." Regardless of whether you thought those complaints had merit-and I don't think they did-you've probably come to accept the smoking ban. More importantly, you may think the past few months have given us a pretty good picture of the effect the smoking ban will have on college life. There's reason to believe this view is very, very wrong. We are in the middle of room draw, and the smoking ban will likely have a very real and pernicious impact on the outcome.
In this year's room selection process, every dorm will be non-smoking. That means that smokers and non-smokers alike will have no guidance as to which housing options would best fit their lifestyle. Likely, then, there will be a more or less even distribution of smokers and non-smokers throughout the dorms; each dorm will have a few smokers, and many non-smokers, some of whom will especially hate smoke. Since enforcement of the ban is far from perfect, there will probably be people smoking inside every dorm next year. There will be no recourse, no dorm where non-smokers can escape the fumes. Ironically, by designating every dorm non-smoking, Marx will have made every dorm a smoking dorm. Compare this to the previous regime: With some smoking dorms and some non-smoking dorms, smokers generally congregated in the dorms where they were allowed to pursue their vice, which meant those averse to smoke had a good chance at living somewhere where they wouldn't have to inhale it. Unfortunately, the president's well-intentioned ban has dismantled a system in which at least some people could be smoke-free, and replaced it with one in which smoking will be ubiquitous.
According to Marx's original manifesto, he enacted the ban to protect students, especially smokers, "because of [his] concern about the health problems caused by direct and second-hand smoke and [his] desire to do all we can to ensure the long-term health of all of our students." But in order to accomplish this laudable goal, the College would have to be able to actually stop people from smoking in their rooms. Leaving aside whether the College has any business doing such a thing, I think it's impractical and ultimately unlikely. Everyone knows that the smoke detectors fail to catch most smokers. But what other methods do we have? Random police inspections stink of a police state, and even the most virtuous of innocents don't want the cops popping in unannounced. We can't rely on neighbors to report smokers for the same reason the noise complaint system doesn't keep the campus quiet: People feel bad about ratting out their peers.
Barring extreme measures, then, the Marxist smoking ban isn't going to make many people quit. But, as I pointed out above, it threatens to eliminate any refuge from smoke in housing. If you're not a fan of tobacco, you may be asking yourself what you can do to escape its stench next year. Here are my thoughts:
1. The administration should designate some dorms as smoking dorms. This would make it possible for some of us to live smoke-free. Unfortunately, it's probably not going to happen. When I asked Marx about the problem, he seemed to believe that increased enforcement was the solution.
2. Create unofficial non-smoking (or smoking) dorms. How exactly to do this is unclear. Maybe we could exploit the theme housing system. Maybe SHAC could be persuaded to keep track of which dorms are becoming de facto smoking or non-smoking dorms as room draw progresses.
But I'm not convinced any of these schemes will really work. To paraphrase Marx, "the specter of smoke is rising over Amherst." Which brings me to my most reliable plan. Buy noseplugs, and try not to breathe too much.