Regarding Michelle Lamont´s recent column (“Smokers have rights, too,” Oct. 3), I disagree with the author’s trivialization of the increased risk of contracting lung cancer — “only” 20 percent more — incurred by a non-smoker who lives with a smoker. Twenty percent sounds like a lot to me! Lamont also trivializes second-hand smoke by referring to it as the “transient tendril of cigarette smoke” as you walk down the street, but it´s a matter of how high your tolerance is. If the majority of people walked down the sidewalk chain-smoking, maybe Lamont would feel differently.
Thomas Jefferson, inspired by the words of John Locke, wrote in the Declaration of Independence of our inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Smoking clearly infringes on the right to life of both the first- and second-hand smoker, since cigarette smoke contains toxic and carcinogenic substances such as carbon monoxide, tar, formaldehyde, cyanide, and ammonia.
There is no such thing as “the right to smoke,” because actually that means “the right to harm ourselves and others, eventually killing both of us.” We don´t have the right to kill people using knives, guns, etc., so why should we have the right to use smoke to do the same thing?
Julianna Gallardo
GSAS
Read More
GILLIKIN and JOHNSON: U.Va., please rescind your Federal Executive Institute bid
By Steven L. Johnson and Matthew Gillikin | 2 days agoBy withdrawing its competing bid and endorsing the Charlottesville City Schools’ bid, the University has a high-profile opportunity to strengthen its partnership with Charlottesville City Schools.
BAKER, FRIDLEY, LIEU: We should re-examine Inclusive Access textbooks on Grounds
By Susannah Baker , Chloe Fridley and Brighton Lieu | April 11, 2025This appearance gives a fooling impression that Inclusive Access is the cheapest, best option for students, when in reality, the program is misleading in cost, accessibility and privacy.
OBITUARY: John Thomas Casteen III passes away at 81
By Elizabeth Ingeborg Casteen and John T. Casteen IV | March 19, 2025Casteen may be best remembered as the founder of AccessUVA, a scholarship program to support undergraduate students whose qualifications were excellent, but whose families would be hard pressed to afford college tuition.
