Letter to the editor: Take away cigarettes, but not my pipe

I suggest to President David Boren and his smoking-ban committee that students and faculty should be allowed to continue smoking their pipes on campus.

Boren cites litter cleanup costs and serious health concerns as the primary reasons to ban smoking on campus. Neither of these applies to pipe smoking. When one is done smoking a pipe, he or she simply taps the remaining bits of tobacco leaves (known as “dottle” to pipe smokers) on to the ground. This hardly constitutes littering.

The health effects of pipe smoking are negligible. Granted, this is only a correlation, but it serves to demonstrate that pipe smoking does not constitute a serious health risk.

The pipe is featured on our state flag, and a statue of a Native American holding his pipe has stood on the North Oval for years. Pipes are classy, dignified and a symbol of intellectual thought. If a university could manifest all of its ideals into a person, that person would smoke a pipe.

Albert Einstein said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” I hope that such calm and objective judgment will keep this campus friendly to pipe smokers for years to come.

Dominic Granello, history sophomore