Smoking wars fog the doorways
Collegian opinion

    A proven fact is the longer someone smokes cigarettes or is around the smoke, the more likely he or she is to develop lung cancer. We have known this information for a long time.

   Despite the access to information we all have with the Internet and libraries, people still participate in the life-ending decision to smoke.

   People who smoke or have smoked at one time account for more than 85 percent of the people with lung cancer.

   Lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in the United States than any other type of cancer.

   Anyone can find this information, but we still have millions of people who hurt not only themselves but their families by smoking. The families are the ones who will still be around after the smoker pays the ultimate sacrifice and dies.

   You do not need to be a smoker to run the risk of developing lung cancer. All it takes is being exposed to large amounts of secondhand cigarette smoke.

   Secondhand smoke’s being responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths is a much more serious issue.

   Not only do smokers effectively shorten their lives but also they affect non-smokers just as much.

   We have eliminated smoking in most buildings. But more should be done.

   For example, when students walk into a building on campus, they are forced to walk through a cloud of smoke caused by smokers standing in front of the doors to each building.

   A full-time student usually takes an average of 12 credit hours, four classes.

   Each time this student goes to a class, he will be forced to walk through smoke two times per class and a total of eight times in a week.

   Per year this same student who does not smoke will be exposed to cigarette smoke approximately 416 times. That’s a large amount of exposure for someone merely walking to class.

   It has now come to the point where the responsible are paying for the actions of the irresponsible. Smoking is not a vitamin.

   Smoking will not make you stronger. Smoking will , however, give you cancer.

   This situation is similar to getting candy on Halloween, participate and one will get candy. If someone smokes, he will get cancer.

   Cancer patients suffer chronic cough, coughing up blood and repeated bouts of bronchitis or pneumonia.

   Examining the early stages of cancer, we often wonder why people continue to smoke.

   What we should wonder is why they are still allowed to smoke.

   Furthermore, we must ask ourselves why the smokers have more of a say regarding smoking locations.

   Where is the smoker who will argue for smoking and causing a non-smoker to suffer through cancer?