I refer to Government should stop employing smokers by SM Mohamed Idris, president of the Consumers Association of Penang.

I'm a senior member of the faculty at a top government-linked private university. As a non-smoker, I can identify with this sentiment - in fact, I have quite poor tolerance for tobacco smoke due to allergies and minor respiratory problems.

However, let me tell you about our experience here at the university. From the very beginning, we have had a total ban on smoking on campus. No rooms were set aside for smokers and they were not even allowed to smoke outside on campus grounds.

This has totally backfired on us. Because there are no legitimate places for them to smoke, they hide and smoke in the toilets, in the back lanes, in the stairwells, etc. It has made life more difficult for us non-smokers as a result.

I did my PhD in a foreign university and there they had a designated smoking room. We non-smokers were never bothered by the smoke because all the smokers would dutifully comply with the rule and smoke only in the smoking room.

The smoking rooms had proper exhaust fans that drove the smoke out of the buildings through a chimney or something so that non-smokers even in adjacent rooms never smelled the smoke.

"Just fine them," you might say. But, these are our colleagues - most of whom are doing good productive work in cooperation with us.

If we turn them in, their collaboration with us will suffer, morale will go down. I have read that smokers become edgy and unable to work properly if they don't get their "fix".

Also, is it reasonable to tell an addict, "Just don't do it"? After all, that is what an addict is - they cannot just will themselves to stop. They need external help.

"So provide the help!" Well, as a supposedly profit-making private university, who is going to pay for it? Unless there is a government programme to do it, or tax incentives or something, I don't think the bean-counters will let that happen.

"So fire them and don't hire any more smokers!" as SM Mohamed Idris seems to be suggesting. That will take millions of otherwise productive individuals out of the work force, and they would become a social burden.

I and other non-smoking colleagues have lobbied the university administration to make designated smoking rooms. There are rooms in my building which can easily be converted into a smoking room by the simple addition of some exhaust fans and barriers.

However, our attempts have been futile - we are told there is some kind of law against educational institutions having smoking rooms.

So we poor non-smokers have to suffer on every time we use the toilet or walk in certain paths or stairwells.

I urge the government to either change this law and allow us to have designated smoking rooms, or to start free or heavily subsidised "quit smoking" programmes for all university employees who are smokers and mandate that they attend.