School Policy on Smoking

I agree completely with your editorial. Although I believe smoking is harmful, and perhaps selfish, I do not think it should be banned from teachers and staff completely in the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is inevitable that those adults who are prohibited to smoke on district property will, indeed, “sneak around.”

An impressionable young child will not understand the contradiction between being told not to smoke and seeing someone he or she admires do so. It is like, for example, parents doing drugs in front of their child. And, when the child experiments with drugs himself, the parents ask where he learned how to do it.

If district officials’ goal is to discourage smokers from lighting up a cigarette, they are wasting their time. I have learned from experience that people will do as they please.

Therefore, the district should continue designated smoking areas in schools. That way, secondhand smoke will be kept away from classrooms and, most importantly, innocent children.

CYNDI OLDER

Simi Valley