The city of Ames was the first to put a ban on smoking. Now, IRHA has joined the team of smoker bigots.

Smoking will not be allowed in the residence halls next year.

Like the city of Ames, IRHA has made an elitist decision to put even more needless limitations on a legal substance.

How is it elitist? Because of the real reason smoking has been banned. The decision was not made because secondhand smoke is bad for a person’s health, but rather because the members do not like smoke.

The student government organization made a choice to ban smoking claiming the inhalation of secondhand smoke is bad for a person’s health.

Jeff Greiner, Union Drive Association president, sponsored the bill.

He said the bill was passed because residents wanted it and IRHA members felt it was best for their constituents.

Greiner was quoted in the Daily as saying he does not want to “condemn people to a possible slow and painful death.”

The problem lies within the assumption that secondhand smoke is deadly.

Antismoking advocates will source major governmental research projects when claiming secondhand smoke is deadly, but they ignore the truth behind the studies.

In 1986 the National Research Council and the Surgeon General concluded from their studies that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer.

However, it was later found that of 13 studies reviewed, seven of them actually showed no correlation between lung cancer and secondhand smoke.

More than half the studies reviewed showed no relation between the two. Research was then passed to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In June, Fox News reported that by 1993, more than 80 percent of the 33 studies that had been completed reported no common link.

The EPA then tossed out two of the studies showing no correlation and reviewed the other 31. Somehow, it was estimated that secondhand smoke causes 3,000 lung cancer deaths every year.

Amazing as it may seem, the California EPA then used the previously tainted results in their own report.

And they were tainted results. The EPA wanted to prove something with its study. When it failed to do so, lying was the last resort.

In 1998 the EPA report was overturned in a federal court because the agency had cheated on the results.

The World Health Organization picked up the ball later that year.

It too failed to provide any significant statistical proof that secondhand smoke and lung cancer are related.

And the list goes on to other health problems blamed on secondhand smoke – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, asthma and heart disease.

If it was a proven fact that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, it should not have played a role in the decision.

Smoking is only permitted in the privacy of a student’s room when agreed upon by roommates. The only people a smoker could then possibly be hurting is themselves and the person who agreed to allow smoking in their room. If the door is closed, the smoke can not hurt anyone outside the room.

It should not be the decision of those whose health is not at risk. But in this case, that is clearly who made the decision.

The truth is these people do not like the smell of smoke.

I don’t blame them for that, but that’s not a legitimate reason to ban smoking.

When some guy goes into the rest room after a night of nearly binging himself to death, it surely stinks. Yet, no one thinks of making a rule to prohibit that.

Rules and laws are not written for personal pleasure, but rather for the well-being of the public when it can not otherwise be helped.

Until it is proven that secondhand smoke is responsible for the health problems many claim it to be, smoking should not be banned in the residence halls.

IRHA, by approving the smoking ban you played the role of a parent to your constituents. That is not your job.

Zach Calef is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Cedar Rapids. He is an assistant news editor of the Daily.