Dear Editor,

I am a smoker and very angry that I am being pushed to the margins and forced to take a route around the perimeter of Weber’s campus between my classes. I am not trying to justify my habit; I am simply tired of being marginalized. I was forced to smoke outside to reduce air pollution inside and then I was pushed 25 feet away from building entrances. Like them or not these are rational standards, understandable, and backed by significant statistical data. Therefore I comply and wait until I’m away from a building before I light up.

Now I am to be banished from the main area of our campus with the same goal of “reducing air pollution” only this time it is fully a manufactured excuse to excluded members of Weber’s population from an area of the campus. The amount of pollution released per cigarette I smoke is less than one thousandth of a percent of one second of running a weed eater, blower or lawn mower. In fact the amount of air pollution I can produce in an entire lifetime is a thousand times less than any one car running for 15 minutes. So my smoking outside has no statistical significance for air pollution in comparison to the equipment used to maintain the lawns. The truth is Smokers are being singled out and condemned because we are not united and considered undesirable to the ruling group at Weber and not for the improvement of air quality that is claimed. I will not pay any fine for smoking outside when I am surrounded by gross polluters.

Michael Durham