Forum has had a number of letters and editorials written about smokers on campus — whether faculty, staff or students — many times before this. Many discuss the harrowing experience one must suffer through in order to enter a classroom building like St. Thomas, a cloud of carcinogens and stench hanging in the air as smokers light up before class.

There are others who talk about the bane of what has come to be known as third-hand smoke — that smell that lingers on clothing and furniture, for example, long after someone has put out their cigarette.

Still, the smoking population and their allies — if any exist after the cloud lifts — defend their right to smoke. For whatever reason that may be, they do.

I have a number of friends — oddly enough, most of them hailing from the English department. You know those literary types — who cannot go an hour-and-fifteen-minutes without lighting up. I see them between classes, parked outside on a curb by CLP or sitting on the steps of the library pre- and post-class, puffing away. Many are courteous: they’ll blow smoke up into the air instead of forward into oncoming student traffic, averting the helpless lungs of those who choose not to light up.

Then again, there are those students I don’t know who lack common courtesy and refuse to seclude themselves to overhangs or steps in order to puff away. Instead, I almost always find myself right behind them walking to class, their cigarette smoke acting like the steam released from a locomotive as they trot down the commons. The smoke smacks me in the face, and it’s then that I have to sit down to write about the woes of the non-smoker at The University of Scranton.

At the moment, Student Government is working on legislation to address this ongoing debate about smoking on campus. The legislation addresses the current policy of smoking at The University: a universal rule that smokers must be at least 25 feet away from a building if they wish to smoke, and that if they wish to smoke near residence halls, they can just forget about it.

But funny what I found as I perused the Student Government report and roamed about campus myself. Sure, the signs around academic and administrative buildings instruct smokers that the area right in front of the entranceways is certainly not the area to sit and puff away in. Take St. Thomas Hall for instance. There, right next to the window of Dr. F. Homer’s office—which, by the way, is home to a red octagon that reads, “Lungs at work / no smoking”—is a sign that proclaims that space a “NO SMOKING AREA.” Right there, in capital letters.

Do you pay heed to the sign? Do you shrug it off, delighting in “annoying people,” as one smoker put it, or reveling in convenience?

There are also those signs around DeNaples that read “Smoking is not permitted within 50 feet of this facility.” Do you actually move 50 feet away from the building, or stand right next to the doorway, complete with convenient ledge and bench upon which to sit?

Additionally, imagine my surprise at the number of cigarette disposal methods located in the freshman residence halls area, when in fact, students, according to University policy, should not smoke by doors that provide access to the dorm buildings. Yet there they were: pots of sand sitting not two feet away from the entrances to Casey, Lynett, Fitch, Martin and Denis Edward, and cigarette disposal boxes right underneath the dormitory signs!

As Student Government continues to work on legislation, Aquinas encourages you — students, faculty and staff — to utilize Forum for your thoughts regarding this issue. Input from The University community is imperative when dealing with an issue as far-reaching as smoking on campus.

Do you have ideas to deal with the situation? For example, do you think, as Marywood University has done, Scranton ought to construct special “smoking booths” — covered sitting areas scattered around campus to give smokers the comfort in which to smoke, and those who choose not to smoke the clean air they desire? Should there be a penalty in place for smokers who fail to comply with University policy? Should non-smokers just suck it up and deal with cigarette smoke as they have in the past?

Aquinas invites you to send your thoughts to the Forum Editor, Brian Tenazas, who can be reached at tenazasb2@scranton.edu. Don’t let this issue go up in smoke. Respond now, and your letter will appear in an Aquinas after spring break.