Pity the nicotine addict

I don't mind people smoking outside, but as one of the 15-20% of the population psychologists are now calling "highly sensitive"* I do find gum chewing incredibly distracting.**

 So this doesn't look good. All the nicotine addicts at LSU are going to walk around furiously chomping little pieces of rubber with their mouths open. Some percentage of them will do that thing where you make the gum snap, irritating even the lowly sensitive people.*** I'll be hiding out in my office blaring FIDLAR.

On this gum business, it's really weird that the ban will apply to e cigarettes, but not to nicotine gum, even though nicotine gum doesn't really help people quit. The second weird thing there's no enforcement mechanism:

The policy doesn’t exactly have teeth. Campus police won’t be able to write tickets for smoking, and leaders acknowledge that it will be more of a recommendation to campus visitors and tailgating football fans.

But Sylvester said she hopes the campus community will take on the role of self-policing to stamp out tobacco.

“We’re definitely going to use the social-norming approach,” she said. “Seventy percent of us do not use any kind of tobacco products. We are the norm, not the tobacco user.”

So at best you are going to get all these busy bodies telling people "you can't smoke here," and smokers patiently explaining that actuality implies possibility as they continue to puff away. I don't see this ending well.

Feh. Where's Roger Scruton when you need him?***

[Notes:

*Coming soon to a DSM near you! Nice salon dot com article here.

**Oprah Winfrey never allowed it on set. Singapore doesn't allow it on island, God bless them.

***I'm not neurotic, you're desensitized.

***Actually, according to the Guardian, that didn't work out to well either.]