Campus smoking ban eliminates student rights

Another smoking ban? Here we go again. Enough is enough. First came taxes, then came designated areas, and now here comes Bellarmine University with a smoking ban.
Nobody in their right mind denies the risks of smoking tobacco products. Smoking cigarettes undoubtedly causes lung cancer and other health problems. For this reason, I absolutely agree that this health risk should be combated with the full force of education.
In the same vein, secondhand smoke absolutely remains a considerable health risk for non-smokers. Given the risk of second-hand smoke, designated areas for smoking makes sense for the protection of non-smokers. But a campus-wide smoking ban is frankly ridiculous.
Are we supposed to believe that non-smokers do not have the sense to protect their own health by staying away from non-smoking areas? Do they have the sense to come out of the rain?
A campus-wide smoking ban takes a good idea and makes it oppressive. Smokers make up 25% of the population, which is the quarter of the American people whose rights no longer seem to be of any importance to the remaining 75% of our society*.
Already society regulates smokers to separate areas, and taxes them an arm and a leg for their cigarettes. Society has done enough to stop the effects of smoking. Now is the time to draw the line.
Smoking 15 feet away from the exits of all Bellarmine buildings does no one any harm except the smokers themselves.
When it comes to smokers' health as far as the University is concerned, if they are over 18 that is their business. To ban smoking from the entire campus implies the act of smoking is sinful.
Smoking cigarettes hurts health, but give me a break. We live in a society founded on the basis of individual rights.
The ability to smoke cigarettes is not a privilege it is a right. Citizens have the right to choose whether they want to smoke or not, and the University should not interfere so long as no innocents are hurt. The ban is excessive and I disagree with the University's decision to enact it.