There’s something in the air and it’s bringing me to tears.
It’s the stench of secondhand smoke. The burning sensation that hits my eyes and causes my clothes to smell. It’s the cancer sticks some of you stick in your mouths and carelessly blow around for other’s and my enjoyment.
Students, please stop smoking in the bathrooms. It’s making it hard to breathe around here.
I don’t recall ever being asked if I wanted a smoking or non-smoking stall, but to be honest, Floridians voted on that very issue last year.
Remember Amendment 6 last November? It banned smoking in public places.
That means no smoking anywhere, where anybody can go–including the public restrooms around campus.
That means I shouldn’t smell the bittersweet, vanilla smog of Black & Milds, which by the way, can cause cancers of the lung, oral cavity, larynx, esophagus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
But who wants to smoke a Black, anyway? Sure, some say it smells good. But the fact is, cigars contain a “substantial” amount of addictive nicotine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Besides that, those big, brown killers are ugly, and they make your teeth yellow and your lips black. Not a pretty picture.
Too bad Amendment 6 didn’t go into effect until January. That girl in Cropper Hall last year could have saved us all a trip outside, but instead she stuck a burning cigarette in the bathroom trashcan and started a fire.
On second thought, she didn’t need Amendment 6 to be in the wrong.
FAMU is a dry campus, meaning no drugs or alcohol on campus–including cigarettes.
Now, I’m not going to go there with the whole “cigarettes can kill you” spiel, because we’re all college students and we’ve all seen the commercials.
Maybe what you don’t know–or haven’t heard enough times–is that cigarettes can kill me, too.
The CDC reported that 65,000 people like me, nonsmokers, die because they inhale the mess smokers puff out.
The more I think about it, the worse I think of cigarettes and the like. I can’t think of one good reason why someone would want to smoke.
Floridians said they were tired of the long, painful death. They would rather not be around the smoke at all. FAMU doesn’t want any part of it either.
So smokers, do all of us a favor and go home and smoke.
You’re killing me here.
Tanya Caldwell, 19, is a magazine production student from Cocoa, Fla. She is The Famuan’s deputy news editor. She can be reached at Tanya_Caldwell@yahoo.com.