Temple's tobacco-free campus policy was just revealed, and as a non-smoker with asthma, my first instinct was to be glad.
However, upon reflection, it becomes obvious how disastrous, counterproductive, and yes, even elitist, this plan is.
The obvious problem with having a "tobacco-free" campus is that we also have an "alcohol-free" campus and a "marijuana-free" campus. Do you see where I'm going with this?
The other obvious logistical problem everybody is seeming to ignore is that Temple is smack in the middle of North Philadelphia: which is an urban campus with local residents constantly on Broad Street and obviously, these rules do not apply to them.
So, given the fact that there will already be a high number of people with the rules not applying to them, why does Temple think it can enforce this?
Speaking of enforcing the rule, how exactly does Temple plan to enforce this? Will the Temple police be riding around looking to confiscate various cigarettes and vapes? Do I really need to explain to all of you why this is a terrible idea?
Is this the type of environment we want to promote? I do not think anybody has a "right" to smoke, but giving some sort of authority to yank things out of people's mouths? I do not think it would not be radical to think of the slippery slope this could lead to. We are a public university with our own police force.
Not only that, but should we really be taking Juuls away? Now I personally think Juuls are the teenager version of a pacifier, but despite that, some people that use a Juul are doing so to quit their addiction to cigarettes. We should not be in the market of interfering with a person's attempt to quit.
This is doubly ridiculous when you consider all of the alternatives, too.
Temple has a policy where one is forbidden from smoking 25 feet from a building. Why not just enforce that? Or stop selling nicotine products at the 7/11?
And how can we claim that tobacco is the immediate problem when there is a bar right on Liacouras Walk?
This entire policy is the result of a bunch of annoying liberal children wanting to feel like activists and enshrine themselves in a veil of moral superiority. The "Task Force" is just some liberal elitist students that want to show off how woke they are and ruin everybody else's fun so they took this cause because it seemed easy.
You can see this by how I just poked all of those holes in their platform.
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