I’m a teenager currently attending a very large public school. I have also had asthma since I was 10. My asthma is not generally super severe but my biggest trigger by far is cig/vape smoke. Not in a "little bit short of breath way," in a "rushed to the hospital with a blood oxygen of 77 because I walked through a place where somebody smoked 10 minutes ago" way.
I use the disabled bathroom in the nurses’ office and several faculty bathrooms depending on my location, as well as one in my grade level office, to avoid the kids who smoke there. The grade level office usually requires me to walk through the crowd of kids sent to the principal and is never pleasant. Once when I was doing so, somebody asked me why, so I told him "I have asthma so it’s dangerous for me to risk breathing in somebody’s gross vape smoke."
He apparently took this as me shaming people who vape and acting "all high and mighty" and "shaming addiction." He went on a three minute rant until the receptionist shut him down.
So, AITA for "shaming smoking?"
NTA – smokers/people who vape usually are self aware that it’s bad for you. There’s no harm in telling people that on top of it being directly harmful to you.
nta, obviously. you have a medical condition, and they need to respect that.
Asthmatic and pulmonologist.
> walked through a place where somebody smoked 10 minutes ago
You don’t need to exaggerate to get sympathy. This isn’t really realistic.
NTA. You told someone that second hand smoke and vapor are dangerous for you specifically. And it’s not like you brought it up out of the blue. You were asked a question for which that was the answer.
That isn’t “shaming.” It’s simply a fact of your life. If someone feels ashamed when you point out their habit is potentially dangerous to you, that’s probably because they’ve been trying to convince themselves it doesn’t hurt anyone but them. Their denial/discomfort with it is not your responsibility.
Addictions that are detrimental to your health and that of others should be shamed. And I don’t get it — having an extreme environmental sensitivity is hateful now?
The thing about smokers is that they’re all about instant gratification. They can’t think in the long term, and only focus on what feels good right now. I see a cute guy who is interested in me light up a cigarette, and all I can think of is being a young widow who is totally broke from all my dead husband’s lung cancer treatment bills.
NTA. If a law was proposed making smoking illegal, I’d vote for it.
NTA. Anyone who vapes/smokes in public is deserving of all the scorn you can muster
Two responses:
1. Yeah, this was a bit much:
>Once when I was doing so, somebody asked me why, so I told him “I have asthma so it’s dangerous for me to risk breathing in somebody’s gross vape smoke.”
All you have to say is “I have asthma, and cigarette or vape smoke hits me pretty hard.”
There’s no need to go into “and people who vape/smoke are gross.”
YTA for that.
2) If this were true:
>My asthma is not generally super severe but my biggest trigger by far is cig/vape smoke. Not in a “little bit short of breath way,” in a “rushed to the hospital with a blood oxygen of 77 because I walked through a place where somebody smoked 10 minutes ago” way.
…one would think that you would be in the hospital at least once weekly.
YTA for exaggeration.
Meh, it’s a disgusting habit and the shame is earned.
But the shame is scctuslly working against OP. stressing s smoker out sbout cigarettes will make them have an immediste urge to smoke and shaming them will turn off the smoker from being more considerate of OPs needs.
This is a case of, do you want change or do you want to express your anger/frustration. You cant always have both in life because you cant control other people. But there are certsinly better ways of convincing somebody to be more considerste of their smoking than calling them gross.
Oh, teenagers and “world revolves around me only” mentality. 🙄 I am so glad I outgrew this stage.
NTA. This is an actual medical risk for you, not just a ~preference.
1. NTA
2. The shaming comment probably came from the “gross” comment. Not the health comments.
3. Idk your medical history but you should probably get extra serious with your doctor about preventative treatment options and stronger inhalers if existing where someone smoked 10 minutes ago would put you in the hospital.
4. As a former smoker, using negative language around cigsrrettes doesnt stop someone from smoking. Itll acctuslly do the opposite since stress signals the urge to smoke. So if your goal is to get someone people to not smoke, you acctually did the opposite. If you werent in a school and said that, the person would probably walk outside immediately and have a cigarette.
I can understand you using negstive language because id be pretty angry if i was in that situation, but you have to decide if you want to convince people to not smoke around you or want to shame them. You cant always have both and often times youll garner a better outcome by being nice about it. Negstive language will make people not take your needs into consideration at all. Just food for thought.
NTA, even for the word “gross”. Vape smoke ***is*** gross, as is cigarette smoke, and I don’t care if smokers feel shamed for inflicting their disgusting habit on other people.
But I’m curious…
I was a teenager in the 1970s. Back then, in my country, smoking was permitted practically everywhere. It was allowed on public transportation, in shops and cafes and offices, in hospitals, in cinemas, and in cars even if young children were in the back seat. Some of our teachers even smoked in the classroom.
I’ve had a lifelong aversion to cigarette smoke, and I hated being expected to put up with other people’s disgusting smoke everywhere I went. But I was powerless to do anything about it. In one of my first jobs after leaving school, a co-worker was a pipe smoker. He’d sit at his desk all day puffing away on his pipe, sending clouds of the most noxious stench over the rest of us. But he was a senior employee and there was not a damn thing I could do about it.
Despite the general acceptance of smoking in those days, it was absolutely banned for students at my school, and probably at every school in my country. Students did occasionally have a sneaky cigarette in bathrooms or locker rooms, but those areas were patrolled regularly by teachers, and if the students were caught, they’d face a detention at the very least.
The rather questionable logic behind this apparent hypocrisy was that smoking was an adult pastime, not a kid one, so kids had no right to partake directly (and legally couldn’t buy cigarettes anyway) even though they were inhaling clouds of second-hand smoke. The very oldest students at my school would have been 18 and legally allowed to smoke, but while on school premises they had the status of children, so they weren’t allowed.
Fast forward to 2026, when smoking and vaping are heavily frowned on if not actually restricted in most western countries.
If I’m reading your post correctly, students at your school (whatever age they may be) are allowed to smoke and to vape quite openly, there’s probably no rule forbidding it at your school, and even if there is such a rule, no one in authority at your school is doing a damn thing to enforce it.
Is this correct?
If so, I have become seriously out of touch with what’s permitted in schools these days.