Thursday, Jan. 24, 11:38 a.m.

Officers responded to multiple reports of a male student standing on the steps of Snell Library animatedly showering himself with a bucket of liquefied feces. Multiple students in the area who were struck by errant fecal spray were referred to University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS) for antibiotic treatment and the student was arrested on multiple charges.

The student claims the officers are stripping him of his individual liberties and right to the pursuit of happiness by preventing him from slathering himself – and anyone unfortunate enough to stand nearby – with human waste.

That didn’t happen. Are you kidding? We all would have heard about that by noon. But what if it did? What if it became a thing that people did regularly, taking the time between classes to lather up before showing up to the next class, smelling less than attractive and having a serious impact on the public health of the campus community?

There would be outrage and President Aoun would inevitably send out a campus-wide memo. UHCS would be handling all sorts of issues and campus police would certainly do something to stop the insanity. In short order, we’d probably have a campus-wide ban on the public distribution of excrement. No individual’s personal liberty extends so far as to put the health and well-being of others in jeopardy.

But somehow, smoking is different. I can walk to class having made the choice to protect my health by choosing not to smoke and – this has happened – have smoke casually blown directly into my face over some uncaring student’s shoulder. I won’t get cholera from this and there’s still a good chance I’ll make it through life without ever having lung cancer. But what if I had asthma? What if I had a bad cough and that smoke sent me into a coughing fit? What if I just really hated having some jerk blow smoke in my face?

This doesn’t happen once, though. As a nonsmoker who has needed to utilize Snell Library, I can safely say that I’ve taken in the equivalent of at least a cigarette just navigating the hazy smog of study breaks outside the library’s front doors.

All of this is preventable. For one thing, the university could do a much, much better job of enforcing its smoking policies.

“Smoking is prohibited in accordance with University Policy, in any area of the Snell Library building or in any unit of the University Libraries, as well as on the steps and loggia of Snell Library. Failure to comply will result in referral to the Office of Student Correction [sic] and Conflict Resolution,” reads the library Security and Conduct webpage. Really? I would love to know how many students have been referred to OSCCR for smoking on the steps or loggia of Snell. I would love even more to see that number go up. Not only does the university not enforce that policy, but it also has instead encouraged smoking in that area with the installation of cigarette butt receptacles. If I could go study without feeling like a smoker’s front teeth, I might not have such a big problem with the fact that my peers are actively inhaling carcinogens for their own enjoyment. Personal liberties, you know.

But I like this policy better:  “Smoking is prohibited on Northeastern University’s campus. Period.”

Smokers might complain that their personal liberties are being taken from them, that the university is stripping them of their right to the pursuit of happiness and making a very personal choice for them. Well – and I know this will come as a shock to him – that prick who blew smoke in my face by the Snell Archway as I walked to class that day made a very personal choice for me, too.

Set aside the fact that we have largely lived in a society that somehow allows people to suck down poison all day, and think about it and answer this question:  What’s the difference, in terms of impact on public health and quality of communal life, between smoking and splashing around in a bucket of sewage?

-Taylor Dobbs can be reached at [email protected].