Oh, America

I don't write as much about the USA as I used to. Frankly, it's just too depressing. America's retarded approach to e-cigarettes and its increasingly fascist smoking bans are not based on any form of logic so there is no argument with which to engage. Since the people who are bullying their way towards prohibition are not appealing to science, reason or principles, there is nothing to say. It is now a power struggle, pure and simple, and the fanatics have the power.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about...

Mary Simmonds takes smoking personally.

As director of the Florida A&M University's School of Allied Health's Division of Cardiopulmonary Science, Simmons knows what smoking and tobacco use does to the heart and lungs of people, especially African-Americans. And Simmons believes FAMU should be at the forefront of discouraging smoking.

“This is something that I have been talking about with others on campus,” said Simmons, who has been at FAMU for 13 years. She oversees the four-year program that trains respiratory therapists. “Big Tobacco has always marketed to African-Americans. I have taken care of many patients affected by tobacco.

“We’ve had complaints about second-hand smoke, some faculty have asthma, and are affected. And there’s third-hand smoke from that dropped butt. I’m still getting that smoke.”

Third-hand smoke?! This woman is at an institute for higher learning, for God's sake. Does she believe in pixies too?

Simmons recently secured support from the Faculty Senate in her drive to get the university designated a tobacco-free, smoke-free environment.

Because it's not enough to be 'smoke-free', the whole place - indoor and out - must also be 'tobacco-free'. No chewing tobacco. No snus. And, as we shall see, no e-cigarettes. Why? Because she can.

This kind of coercive paternalism is remarkably common on US campuses...

As of Jan. 1, there are at least 1,475 campuses that are 100 percent smoke-free, according to the Americans for Non Smokers’ Rights website, (www.no-smoke.org). Of these, according to the advocacy group, 1,128 are 100-percent tobacco-free, and 802 prohibit the use of e-cigarettes anywhere on campus.

Note that the majority also ban vaping. Tobacco control is not about tobacco. It's about control.

If approved, the FAMU policy would restrict cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and e-cigarettes from being used on campus property. It also would restrict smoking in university-owned vehicles during work hours and include everyone.

It also would extend to contractors, vendors and visitors, she said.

“Once you hit the campus, you can’t smoke,” Simmons said.

Or chew tobacco, or vape...

She said the policy also would prohibit the use of e-cigarettes (“They are just as harmful as regular cigarettes") and smoking hookah, which is popular among college students.

Again, I remind you that this person works at a university.

Simmons understands it's going to take time to change the status quo.

“Anytime you are impeding someone’s rights," she said, "you have to get all of the stakeholders involved; the entire FAMU campus.”

Except the people whose rights you are impeding. But they're in a minority so screw them.

Ottisha Torres, a freshman criminal justice major from Tampa, leans in favor of the policy change, largely because of the health risks.

“Second-hand smoke is just as bad as first-hand smoke,” she said.

What kind of idiocracy is this college? This is the predictable and intended consequence of lying to people year after year. Secondhand smoke and e-cigarettes being as bad as smoking. Thirdhand smoke being a thing. This is how stupid you have to make people before they go along with the kind of tyrannical policies we are seeing in 2016.