VOL. XIII, NO. 6
JANUARY 14, 1972

I Believe . . .
MW for Learning,
Not for Smoking
By JO KAMINSKI

I believe that the biggest mistake the Maine West administration could make is to advocate the admission of a smoking lounge to our school.

For one reason a recent bond referendum was voted down for an increase in the school's educational fund. The school can't waste money on such an unnecessary item as a smoking lounge. This school wasn't built for the social pleasures of a minority of students. This school is built around an educational curriculum which gives it a high scholastic rating. The money which would have to be expended in order to put in a smoking lounge would come out of money which is desperately needed to improve the educational standards of this school.

There is not one person in this school who can't make it through an eight hour day without having to have a cigarette. Most students who do smoke generally don't go to school for nine periods a day which limits their smoking for about 5 or 6 hours a day.

Smoking is usually a means of showing one's advancement into adulthood. Unfortunately, that is the reason too many young people start smoking.
 Despite the popular opinion among students that a smoking lounge would have no influence on the non-smoker, I believe that school is the one place where there should be an escape from social and group pressures. The student who wouldn't normally smoke out of school would be forced to start smoking when all their friends and associates go to a smoking lounge instead of PAR or study hails. In short the student would have to smoke in order to be in the smoking lounge and be with his or her friends.

Probably the worst effect of a smoking lounge would be that money which could be spent on the educational advancements of a majority of students would be wasted on the vices of a few.

How would the administration decide who would be eligible to use the lounge and who couldn't? A smoking lounge in the school system would be more trouble than it would be worth. A smoking lounge has no place in an institution which is based on a high academic rating, and one here would have serious effects on many of the students and faculty members of Maine West.