This whole semester everyone has been focusing on the pending smoking policy. Bakersfield College Student Government Association held a vote and the students have spoken. The board is now taking the necessary steps for a tobacco-free campus. Now that’s great. This is what the student body wants. We just hope people didn’t vote that way for the wrong reason. It’s understandable if people voted for the policy because they dislike walking into a cloud of smoke after getting out of class.

We fear people may have voted for the policy not for the cigarette but because of the smoker. It’s something to think about. It is unclear when people started looking down upon smokers, but it seems that as a society we have deemed them inconsiderate and an unhealthy group.

The general thought process of non-smokers is why does anyone want to do something that is obviously unhealthy.  It’s incomprehensible. People feel they have a right to voice their concerns when more often than not it’s unwanted.

We’re not saying we are pro-smoking or anti-smoking, we just feel the need to point out the difference. That difference is from disapproving of the product to disapproving of the user of that product. This seems elementary to say, but people shouldn’t be judging other people on their ‘vices’ so to speak.

There is an unfair bias here. When someone finds out someone else is a smoker, the first emotion is disappointment. That tune changes when someone finds out someone’s a drinker or pot smoker, the emotion is passive.  What makes other ‘vices’ so much better than using tobacco?

So as the school board mulls over the pending smoking policy, we ask students to think about why they voted and if it was for reasons not contaminated by society’s view of what’s deemed acceptable.