I Am Not an Ash-Hole: Lack of ashtrays and butt cans force smokers to litter

It’s not a good time to be a smoker. We’ve been pushed to the outskirts of society, outdoors, twenty feet from dorms, huddling in the rain under awnings and leafy trees. We endure the pitying glances of passing peers in windbreakers, the occasional scrunched nose glare, usually administered by the same people who, under the influence of cheap, light beer, will attempt to bum half your pack on Thursday night.
But we are not bad people. All we want is to enjoy a pre-class cigarette, a post-class cigarette, a mid-paper cigarette or a coffee-and-cigarette in peace. Like high school outcasts forbidden to sit with the cool kids at lunch, we’ve come to terms with our exile.

What I have not come to terms with, after four short weeks at Connecticut College, is the disgusting lack of ashtrays on campus. I’ve watched in dismay as butts accumulated, first merely sprinkled among the wood chips outside my dorm and now beginning to form a thick carpet.

One day sitting on a bench, my fellow smokers and I commiserated: We felt like animals, wallowing in our own filth. Why were we being forced to litter our country club-esque surroundings with the leftovers of our bad habits? I poured out the dregs of my coffee and wedged the paper cup between bench slats. Voilà! An ashtray! Perhaps it was unsophisticated, but it was a small step toward civilization.

But our feeble attempt at campus beautification soon devolved into a wilted mess overflowing with engorged, rain-soaked cigarettes. We were relieved when a gusty storm finally blew it away. Now we are left to wonder why. Why do Blaustein and the library possess the only ashtrays I’ve seen? Is it because they house the French department, a country that is hard to see from space because it is obscured by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke? Why am I charged nearly ten dollars to buy cigarettes on campus? Surely the extra dollars being squeezed from my desperately depleted bank account can be put towards a handful of flowerpots for me to ash in. Perhaps I should get in touch with someone at Camel cigarettes? I’m sure that they would gladly supply us with promotional ashtrays bearing their (or perhaps our) logo.

I understand that on a campus of athletes and other lung-conscious types, I’m a minority. But just as my peers are provided with ample trashcans to throw away their Gatorade bottles, I hope one day to be provided with enough ashtrays to do my part in keeping my campus tidy. Until new legislation pushes us out of society completely, forcing us to travel to Canada to smoke, we must find a way to coexist, smokers and non-smokers.

It shouldn’t be hard to find common ground— we all eat the same dining hall “food,” breathe the same air (albeit some prefer to breathe it through a tube of burning tobacco) and inhabit the same bubble of greenery and fun, where the honor code tells us not to cheat and to respect and uphold the principals of our alma mater. Perhaps this mutual respect for our campus can draw us together in the fight for ashtrays.

So take pride in your campus foliage, becoming slowly smothered beneath a layer of ash and filters. Or picture a sweet little bunny rabbit choking on a cigarette butt. Or maybe look to your peers, haloed in cigarette smoke, guilty and ashamed of the mess they’ve made. Do whatever it takes to inspire you to complain for ashtrays. As it says in our hallowed Honor Code: And thus in manifold service we will render our Alma Mater greater, worthier, and more beautiful.

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