The Lexicon - Bathroom Smoking: A Solution

Bathroom Smoking: A Solution

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Huron High School suffers a pronounced lack of—ahem—bathroom stall doors. The administration’s failure to replace them may appear to constitute neglect—a school that puts a TV in every classroom has no need to skimp on routine maintenance—but closer inspection reveals a forward-thinking, life-saving policy built on a sound, logical foundation:

Cigarettes kill.
Students smoke cigarettes in bathroom stalls because their chances of being caught in the act are slim.
Increase the chance of discovery, and you decrease the smoking.
Decrease the smoking, and you decrease the death.

Voila!

I applaud the administration’s bold decision, but there is more to be done. Should we stand idly by while more of our young become nicotine addicts? Should we play into the pockets of Big Tobacco? Or should we strive to eliminate this menace completely? Our first logical step should be to actively destroy the remaining stall doors, continuing the logic illustrated above. Unfortunately, the stall walls may provide enough cover for the illicit smoking to continue; the walls must be eliminated as well (gradually fazing them out over the next five to ten years will work best). Once this has been accomplished, there will be only one remaining barrier between the smoke junkies and the long arm of the law: the walls of the bathrooms themselves.

With a simple demolition, Huron restrooms could be completely open to the hallways. As most bathrooms straddle corners at hallway intersections, opening them to traffic would reduce congestion tremendously—enough, quite possibly, to solve Huron’s overcrowding problem. Ventilation would also improve.

But the main reason to destroy the walls, of course, is that doing so would render bathroom smoking completely and utterly impossible.

Smoking kills. It kills without regard to race, gender, or age, strikes men and women down in the prime of their lives. It is killing high schoolers as I write these words, and so, on behalf of the entire student body, I ask—nay! I plead!—that you eliminate our bathroom walls once and for all.