Smoking a personal choice, unsolicited judgments against smokers unwelcome

Smoking. Everyone feels the need to lecture me on how bad it is for me and how bad it is for the environment. Many people want to give me their opinions about my personal decision to smoke. Often, however, people do this in an insulting or disrespectful manner despite having good intentions.

I understand some people have gone through traumatizing experiences with friends, family members or others they are acquainted with when it comes to smoking. Seeing those you love struggling with heart disease or pulmonary complications due to smoking is scary. I can completely empathize with these situations, but telling me I should quit because of those reasons doesn't impact me on a decision-making level.

While I was in Minnesota over winter break, my great aunt lectured me about smoking in a way that I actually took to heart. She said smoking would be a difficult habit to quit and people need to eventually evaluate what priority smoking has in their lives.

My great-aunt is an ex-smoker and a registered nurse. She made decisions almost 20 years ago to quit smoking and continued to abstain from smoking, even to this day. Instead of lecturing and telling me to quit, she only advised me to stop smoking.

This is the type of advice and personal testimony I will remember for a while, especially when I come to a point where I decide my smoking habits need to change. The advice my great-aunt gave is so much better than that of the elderly man who yelled out his truck window, while still driving, to me to tell me that I have a hole in my lung because I smoke. That didn't encourage me to change my habit; it just infuriated me.

Aside from the unsolicited advice, I have also noticed that smokers face discrimination in specific ways. Some employers have implemented policy changes regarding hiring employees who smoke, according to a Jan. 6 USA Today article by Wendy Koch. These employers refuse to hire individuals who fail urine tests for any variety of nicotine, including cigarettes, patches and smokeless tobacco. These policies blatantly discriminate against smokers. Although these regulations apply to everyone in the workplace, only the smokers experience direct impact.

There are currently 29 states that protect smokers' rights, according to the USA Today article, and Kansas is not one of them. All of the signs outside of buildings on campus state that people may not smoke within 30 feet of any building, as it is a state law. Laws like this one dictate where an individual can and cannot smoke, and I believe this is a form of discrimination that can impact a smoker's personal or work environments.

I have not experienced workplace discrimination, but I have to realize that because of policies like these, smoking could impact my future career.

I am already aware of the negative social stigma that accompanies smoking. As a smoker, I walk to class with a cigarette and I am aware of the no smoking signs placed around my dorm, various campus buildings and my workplace. I respect the distances specified by these signs, and because campus sidewalks are public places, there is no reason for non-smokers to make negative comments to me about my decisions.

If you don't currently smoke, or never have, there is no reason you should pass judgment on people who choose to. Everyone has his or her own reasons for starting or continuing to smoke, and only that person can make the decision whether or not to quit.

Jakki Thompson is a freshman in journalism and mass communications and women's studies. Please send all comments to opinion@kstatecollegian.com