Smells Like Teen Spirit: A Ban on Perfume in Schools?

Bureaucrats have banned everything from foie gras to trans fats, and now they're putting their nose in another place it doesn't belong:

From The Wall Street Journal: "School districts in Rhode Island, Minnesota and Massachusetts have recently launched public-service campaigns that target fragrances as potential allergens.

The proponents of curbing or banning fragrances in schools—mostly school officials and legislators in different states—argue that excessive use of scents can trigger asthma attacks and cause headaches. Some workplaces and schools have scent bans in Canada, where strong odors have long been viewed as an air-quality issue."

These proposed fragrance bans come at a time when perfume makers are marketing more and more scents towards teens.

Gotta say, as much as we loathe the smell of high school guys masking body odor with Axe or teen girls bathing in dizzying dollar-store perfumes, an outright ban seems like an infringement on people's rights.

We don't mean to put our noses up to the potential health risks of fragrances (yeah, we've heard of those phthalates in fragrances that have been shown to lower testosterone levels in males), but we think more research is needed to prove whether perfumes are a nuisance or indeed a real threat to public health.

What do you think: Do bans on scents make sense to you?