Now that smoking has been banned in the residence halls on the ISU campus, students who enjoy lighting up are looking for ways to smoke outside their room. One of the options discussed between different groups on campus has been building smoking shelters.

These smoking shelters would be a place for ISU students living in the dorms who want to get out of the rain and snow to fix their nicotine addiction. But they already have a place to do this – it’s outside.

The outdoors is the perfect environment to smoke a cigarette, and just because the smoker has to stand close to the door under a short ledge doesn’t make it a bad place.

Another benefit of smoking outside is that it’s free. Smoking shelters will not be built for free, leaving some students unhappy that their money will be going to provide environments for smoking. And even though Bruce Bassler’s idea of having students design these smoking shelters for other students is a good one, there are other things that architecture students could design.

The smoking shelter doesn’t solve the problems associated with smoking students. If anything, the shelters would create more problems than they’re worth.

editorialboard: Andrea Hauser, Tim Paluch, Michelle Kann, Zach Calef, Omar Tesdell