High Schools should have a designated smoking area

1. Free Choice First, we do not currently have smoking sections, so removing them is impossible and therefore wouldn't create the hazards you claim. In fact, your argument works the other way. Installing a smoking area would send the message that we condone and encourage a bad decision. The hypocrisy of teaching the dangers of smoking in the classroom and providing smokers with an area to do so down the hall is incredible. Second, we are not infringing on a student's choice to smoke, only showing them that this particular institution does not believe it is a good decision and will not be encouraging it. Students can still smoke if they choose. In order to decrease and discourage smoking, we need to make smokers aware that they have an unhealthy addiction. Your argument paints the picture of a struggling addict who needs a controlled environment to 'get his fix'. If this is the case, shouldn't we be encouraging and making evident the fact that smoking is a bad decision, whether it hurts their feelings or not? Again, we are not taking away something that currently doesn't exist. I would agree that eating unhealthy foods are bad and it is bad that cafeterias serve such foods. But this has NOTHING to do with a smoking section. The fact that the school has a problematic stance on another health issue is even more of a reason to send a clear message on smoking. We shouldn't adopt another unhealthy position. Rather than further decreasing the health of our students by providing them an area to smoke, we should get rid of unhealthy foods and solve both problems rather than create two. The statistics you provide are irrelevant because you are comparing two equally deplorable things. I'm not advocating unhealthy foods in schools; you are advocating a smoking section. 2. Purpose Currently, there is no formal arena for peer pressure at schools. I'm not saying enforcement of the no smoking policy is iron clad, but there is exponentially less smoking done at schools because of it. If we are to designate a smoking area for older kids, we are simply providing incentive for younger kids and legal ones to start smoking. Smoking, whether contained or not, would rise dramatically. Furthermore, what is to be gained from a smoking area? Less trash? The minute amount of smoking that goes on at schools now does not have a substantial harmful effect. Its not as if, without a smoking area, smokers are simply roaming the halls smoking, leaving their cigarette butts and lit matches strewn about. There are a small number of kids that manage to sneak a cigarette occasionally, the damage you claim is non-existent or unsubstantial at best. 3. Addiction We should have the clubs you mentioned, but we shouldn't have a smoking area for them to be drawn to in the first place. You obviously agree that smoking is bad, so why facilitate a bad habit? Why not make it as difficult as possible to fulfill their addictions? Smokers are not heroin addicts, having severe medical withdrawals in the middle of class, so why institute an area which conveniences them and fuels their addictions? While smoking will continue even without a smoking area, its a matter of degree. Some disbanded rogue smokers managing to sneak a drag between classes do not present a serious problem (and if they do the school should enforce the policy better), but installing a smoking section would exponentially increase the number of smokers and the degree to which they smoke. Making them wait, if nothing else, deprives them of eight hours in which to harm themselves and further their addiction. So, the consequences, both moral and pragmatic, of installing a smoking section do not outweigh the problems presented by the second-hand smoke of someone sneaking a cigarette or the trash they leave behind. We have to ask ourselves if we are willing to compromise the school's credibility as an institution of education, enable addicts to harm themselves, and propagate more and more severe smokers because we are worried that a troublemaker may accidentally start a fire via smoking.