The trend to ban smoking has been sparked.

It started when the city council approved a smoking ban for Ames restaurants and bars.

Now, the Inter-Residence Hall Association is considering a smoking ban for all the residence halls in Spring 2002 or Fall 2002.

This is just another case of a regulation being taken too far.

When any of the 9,000 students living in the residence halls filled out their housing contract, they had several options: Co-ed houses, alcohol-free houses, quiet houses, cross-cultural houses.

A dorm room is a student’s home for nine months out of the year. It’s the place a student studies, sleeps and socializes.

The average student pays $2,592 per semester for a cramped room slightly larger than a closet. At the very least, a student should be able to engage in a legal activity within the privacy of that room.

No one denies that the smell of smoking bothers some.

And those people have the option of living on a smoke-free floor.

And those who want to light a cigarette after a long day of classes have the right to.

Besides limiting the legal activity of a dorm rat, the timing of this bill is all wrong.

It’s unfair to start a regulation when students have already signed their housing contracts.

A tobacco-loving student who requested to live on a smoking floor shouldn’t be told in the middle of the year that the conditions have changed.

Students need time to look for other housing if an immediate smoking ban is approved.

This mid-semester decision is the wrong approach for pleasing non-smokers.

IRHA leaders need to work on controlling the smoking, instead of forcing it out.

This heavy-handed smoke-banning approach should not be approved.

IRHA needs to work to serve student’s needs instead a regulating his or her private activity.

When a student moves into the dorm, he or she gains about fifty roommates.

Each person brings with them their different perspective and beliefs.

And as part of that college experience everyone goes through, each person needs to learn to live in this community.

Problems about noise, alcohol and guests are handled through compromises between roommates or floor members.

That’s the way the smoking policy has been working for years, and should continue to work.

The Terms and Conditions contract for the ISU Department of Residence says students are “expected to use common sense, courtesy and judgment” when living on campus.

The present plan of compromise makes common sense.

This ban does not.

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