The Smoking Ban - I Hope This Helps
Let it not be said that Emma Powell hides away like Bin Laden in the Tora Bora. She recently found time for pesky Jimothy who hadn’t heard about the impending smoking ban until that announcement came round with her and the Vice Chancellor’s signatures on it……
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Subject Re: University's Smoking Policy
From <****@kent.ac.uk>
Date Friday, December 9, 2005 9:58 am
To union-president@kent.ac.uk
Is this just a Union/Senate edict, or were students consulted on this (I was away last year)?
Jimothy
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Subject Ban on smoking
From Emma Powell
Date Friday, December 9, 2005 2:25 pm
To ****@kent.ac.uk
Hi Jimothy,
Thanks for your e-mail. A survey was conducted by the students' union and kent hospitality and it was found that the majority of people wanted a ban on smoking. Hope this answers your question. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to have any more infomation.
Emma
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Subject Re: Ban on smoking
From <****@kent.ac.uk>
Date Friday, December 9, 2005 5:05 pm
To Emma Powell ,
Cc p.a.davies@kent.ac.uk,
Emma
Thanks for replying.
What was the balance of votes? In my view the smoker's vote should have been accorded a higher weighting than the non-smoker's, because while it is no skin off the (typically easy-going) non-smoker's back to press the "Yes" button - the keen smoker cannot register his utter exasperation by voting "No" twice!
As for the health argument - it should be against the instincts of any student union to collude with University chiefs on something as paternalistic as this! The student years (only three or four of them!) are a last window of unrestraint before entering the real world with its wider responsibilities and health considerations.
If you're going there why not clamp down on bar opening times too - it can't be good for students with 9 o'clock lectures to be still in the Venue at 1am..... and all that liver-damaging alcohol too! And how about lobbying the university for harsher penalties on seminar absenteeism - we're only letting ourselves down etc etc... sorry to be flippant but think the Union has been derelict in its duty!
Copied to Phil Davies.
Jimothy McWooster
(3rd yr BSc)
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Subject Re: Ban on smoking
From Emma Powell
Date Monday, December 12, 2005 10:57 am
To ****@kent.ac.uk
We are banning smoking in buildings where non smokers have no choice but to breath the air within the building. We have (and want) to ensure that all staff and students breath clean air. Smokers are not being prevented from smoking. They are merely being prevented from smoking within buildings. People are still free to smoke as long as others don't have to breathe it. We also want to help smokers to give up for their own health and limiting where they smoke has been shown to help.
The argument about also banning alcohol is a common one and is flawed. If you are in a room with a drinker you are not forced to drink their alcohol. Nobody forces it down your throat. If you are in a room with a smoker you have no choice but to (secondary) smoke the cigarette. As for being in the Venue till 1am, that's your choice with a lecture at 9am. You're not being forced to be there.
Hope this helps.
Emma
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Jimothy left it at that – December 12th was his birthday after all. How should he have replied? Answers on a postcard, best entry gets a pack of ready salted crisps from Campus shop (in next month apparently. We’ll pay, you queue.)
By Jimothy
Copyright February 2006
