The government is hazardous to your health. To cut down on smoking, many high schools lock their bathrooms during class periods. And even if the bathrooms are unlocked, students can’t get any privacy because the bathroom stalls don’t have doors.
In Manchester-by-the-Sea High School, students were locked out of bathrooms for more than three weeks. After students protested the policy, health officials ordered the school to reopen the toilets.
“What it was doing was punishing 400 students for the actions of about 10 students,” said Bre Quinn, 18, president of the Student Council.
| Asking a government agency to monitor a government school is like asking the mafia to stop crime. |
Many students have not been as fortunate. Despite complaints at a school in Hawaii, the government’s Department of Health said that it would not force schools to keep bathrooms open all the time. And the Department of Community Affairs in Florence, N.J., another government agency that is supposed to protect you, ruled that schools can limit access to bathrooms as long as students don’t have to wait too long in lines. Asking a government agency to monitor a government school is like asking the mafia to stop crime.
Despite wasting money and effort on a losing battle to reduce smoking, the government thinks taking away more of your rights will get you to quit. Smoking may be hazardous to your health but so is candy, chocolate, and hamburgers. Should we outlaw them also or should we give people control over their own bodies? Libertarians believe that you should decide what goes in your mouth.
If your school tries to lock the bathrooms, you should protest like the students in Manchester-by-the-sea. They were successful and you can be successful.
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They should be unlocked. There are students that don't smoke. If a young person is embarrassed because of “accident in their bowls” it would impair that young persons ability to go to school again phsycologically devastating and adversely impacting that childs general needs. The need to clamp down on one childs acts of smoking are far out weighed by the needs of those that want to learn and could have , if this policy were not inplace– it devastated a good child — from going back ever + forever
I agree that the bathrooms should not be locked, but the school has to find some way to handle smokers. Sure you should be able to choose what goes into your mouth and lungs, but if you have that right, so should the other 399. I am revering to second hand smoke. If you want to mess up your lungs and you life, go ahead. But do it at home or somewhere where you are not messing up a non-smokers life as well. As the student council, you should take responsibility for the 390 non-smokers who are exposed to second hand smoke, take out the smokers! That way, there is no need for locked doors.
Francois Oberholzer, 17, Vice-President of the Hoërskool Centurion, South Africa student council.
Schools lock toilets to stop smoking