Sometimes life sucks. Hence, I smoke. I go outside, take a few puffs, and start to feel a little better. If you smoke, too, we—rest assured, through no intention of my own—may have a second thing in common: we could soon both be criminals. And no, not because cigarettes are some kind of gateway drug. Far scarier: the town of Hanover is considering a universal smoking ban. 

The movement started at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in July of last year, when the DHMC’s medical director spearheaded a prohibition of the use of tobacco on or around the hospital campus. The purpose of the ban was two-fold: first, to set a healthy example for the rest of the Upper Valley; second, to reduce the likelihood that non-smokers would be exposed to secondhand smoke. After making quitting aids (like Nicorette gum and patches) available to the public for free, DHMC began transitioning to a smoke-free zone with relatively little uproar.

Naturally, I can understand why a medical center would want to ban smoking on its premises. Patients with all sorts of ailments have to walk through the main entrance, where many people would otherwise light up. Dartmouth, however, is not a hospital, and it’s a problem when College administrators and Hanover officials express a desire to have smoking banned on campus and in downtown Hanover. Beginning later this year, even the Co-op will cease the sale of tobacco products and prohibit their use on its premises.

The proponents of the tobacco ban have made three primary arguments: that smoking is bad for people’s health and is known to cause emphysema and cancer, that the national cost of healthcare provisions to smokers is enormous (around $96.7 billion), and that secondhand smoke forces the health risks of smoking onto non-smokers.

All of these points, however, are easily rebutted. For starters, while smoking is indeed an undeniably bad habit, there are comparable unhealthy habits that cannot practically be banned. Are we to ban tanning on the beach? Are we to ban the fat in our food? Smoking is neither the leading cause of death nor the greatest contributor to national healthcare costs—obesity is. Of the $150 billion spent annually for obesity-related ailments, almost $60 billion is used for joint replacements, psychiatric care, diabetes treatment, and so on. And though secondhand smoke gets a bad rap, I think most doctors would admit that the risks associated with it are minimal. After all, as hospitals, dorms and most stores ban inside-smoking anyway, we are only discussing an outdoor smoking ban, and most non-smokers don’t trail right behind someone’s smoking hand and inhale all the fumes.

Although I’m sure it will be considered an enormous inconvenience for those who prefer the “[Cough cough], God, I can barely breathe” method, people who don’t like inhaling smoke can kindly move a few steps away from the nearby smoker. Some might say that avoiding someone else’s smoke is too much to ask of a non-smoker; in that case, let’s go ahead and ban body odor, because it’s even harder to avoid some people’s stenches.

And what about the litany of other health hazards we encounter in daily life? Air pollution, for example, poses many of the same health risks that smoking does. Should we therefore topple over the enormous smokestack behind Topliff that spews out steam and who knows what else? What about airplanes and cars? What about diesel-fueled trucks? Tons of things are major sources of dangerous pollutants. Why should people be allowed to drive enormous, gas-guzzling SUVs but disallowed from smoking a cigarette?

Although nothing is definite, there is plenty of significance in the fact that officials are even considering such a proposition. Such a ban, especially at Dartmouth, would be entirely ineffective. Smokers would continue smoking, except they’d be more likely do it in enclosed frat basements, where it can have a more harmful effect on non-smokers, and out of dormitory windows. That this town’s leaders would contemplate such a move speaks to their dangerous aloofness from reality. Is anything stopping alcohol from being next on the list, for the frequent disturbances it causes for innocent residents?

Anyway, next time you see a smoker and decide to give him a hard time, think about how you might feel if he returned the favor—and reminded you how much your excess body fat bothered him.