To the editor:

Students and even educators are aware that for many reasons, education is not always effective in modifying either attitudes or behaviors. Teachers cannot simply present information skillfully and assume that recipients will absorb it like sponges. Witness the campaign against DUI. Despite years of promotion and education, people still drive drunk.

Holding individuals who enter smoking establishments responsible for adverse consequences presumes that those people are fully aware of said consequences. It is unlikely that anyone enters a smoky environment while thinking, “I know I’ll get cancer, but eating here is worth dying for.”

This issue especially concerns the employee. This is a college town, and good-paying jobs are hard to come by! Students know that they can be replaced at the drop of a hat; it would be crazy for employees to risk telling an employer that they do not want to work in the smoking section (let alone that they would like to work in a smoke-free environment).

Businesses are responsible for ensuring that their establishments are safe to the public, which includes customers and, more important, workers. Is it fair to assert that as long as someone is aware they are entering or working at a smoky business, they deserve whatever calamity eventually results? Or is it true that even people who knowingly breathe environmental tobacco smoke do not deserve lung cancer? Wouldn’t it be nice if no one were obliged to decide whether or not they might, or might not, be risking their life in order to conduct business in any public venue of their choice?

Carrie Pohl,

Lawrence