Mesa College’s smoking ban was implemented at the urging of people who felt that the whiff of tobacco smoke they inhaled in passing on their way to Psych 101 every Tuesday and Thursday was killing them.
Yes, they claim those murderous little whiffs of smoke were in fact trying to deprive them of their lives. Regardless of whether or not this is true, I question whether the measures that were subsequently enacted as a result were appropriate and balanced.
We’ve all heard of the innumerable scientific studies that charge second-hand smoke kills a gazillion people each year or something like that. However, it is important to consider that the parameters under which these studies were conducted vary greatly from that which we encounter at Mesa College.