Smoking ban alienates students
Opinion Sunday, March 7th, 2010
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, almost 30 percent of college students smoke cigarettes. Boise State University is severely alienating more than one fourth of its student body with its campus-wide smoking ban. This ban is a fool-hardy attempt to placate a few boisterous complaints.
BSU is not alone in its effort to eliminate smoking on campus. The American Nonsmoker’s Rights Foundation estimates there are at least 381 completely smoke-free college campuses in the United States as of January. There are also 78 colleges that are smoke free, with the exception of a few designated smoking areas.
Although it’s understandable that people don’t want to be bombarded by second-hand smoke, it seems unreasonable that those who are offended couldn’t simply walk away. Or, perhaps, Boise State could create designated smoking areas. It’s fairly ridiculous that one group of students should decide campus policies for all. In a statement released when the policy was enacted, Ferd Schlapper, the executive director of the Health and Wellness Center, said, “Most people, including smokers, understand the harmful effects of tobacco and we want to provide them with health tools and resources to have a tobacco-free lifestyle.”
One would think that forcing people to quit smoking probably isn’t going the best approach to take in creating a healthier campus.
Sophomore and graphic design major, Rachel Hammes said, “It’s a nice thought and it definitely makes the university look good, but it doesn’t really hurt anyone when people smoke but the smokers themselves. I could see how someone would find people smoking on campus annoying, but I find it annoying when guys walk around with their pants around their ankles, that doesn’t mean we should ban that too.”
It’s debatable that the campus-wide smoking ban has done more harm than good. Many students have noted that after the ban took effect, the university removed all cigarette butt trash receptacles, yet people still smoke on campus. Now smokers simply throw their cigarette butts on the ground instead of putting them in the trash. This problem has also translated to the greenbelt. Many students find the river-side walkway to be a convenient spot to light up, resulting in a huge increase of littering. Some students don’t even bother to make it to the greenbelt, which technically is still covered by the smoking ban, and simply continue to smoke on campus — disregarding the ban entirely.
So what can be done about disrespectful and irritated students, while still helping to improve our air? Simple: designated smoking areas. By appointing areas that students can smoke in, away from buildings and high traffic areas, students are allowed to light up, while not bothering their peers. If trash cans are placed within reach of these areas, we could significantly reduce our littering problem. The best part of this solution is that it’s free. Signs simply need to be put up, clearly showing where smoking is acceptable. If a student is sensitive to smoke, or prefers not to smell it, they simply avoid these nooks and crannies on campus.
Not everyone wants to be subjected to second hand smoke, but not everyone wants to be told what they can and can’t do at a public university that they pay big bucks to attend. The solution is simple. A compromise is needed, and fast, before our campus and surrounding areas become overrun with trash.
Short URL: http://arbiteronline.com/?p=41572
Posted by Jessica Swider
on Mar 7 2010. Filed under Opinion.
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There are some students that do have serious issues with having to breathe smoke (beyond being inconvenienced). That isn't magic and rainbows coming out of the end of that cigarette, it's smoke. Acrid, asthma inducing, byproduct of lighting stuff on fire.
Smoking isn't a religion, it's not a necessity, it's a choice- like drinking. Apparently 40% of college students binge drink. Does that mean we need a bar, or does it mean some people need to get a grip?
It 's not that the fundamentalist anti-smoking, anti-drinking, etc., Taliban is coming to the USA…they seem to be already here.
The facts in this article aren't accurate, 8% of our students on campus smoke and 70% of those students reported the desire to quit, which leaves a very small percentage of people who want to continue their habit. If BSU put designated smoking areas on campus it wouldn't help the smokers who want to quit and it wouldn't be "free" there would be the cost of creating the area, the signs, and the up keep. Because as you stated smokers also have a bad habit of littering even though there are trash cans everywhere. There still is NO reason to throw them on the ground.
People exercise on the greenbelt and it is disgusting to run or bike through a cloud of smoke, it is very harmful to people surrounding the smoker; the smoker is exhaling carcinogens/toxins into the surrounding air, how can that be good? For anyone?? Second hand smoke causes 3000 lung cancer deaths per year and 35,000 ischemic heart disease deaths in U.S. non-smokers.
The majority of students on campus want it smoke free and they pay big bucks as well.
Where are you getting those numbers? The article never said that 30% of BSU students smoke, simply that 30% of college students overall smoke.
As for not wanting to breath in second hand smoke, thats understandable and reasonable, but still doesn’t give anyone the right to dictate what others can or can’t do.
When it comes to the students who have health issues regarding smoke, they would simply have to use common sense and not walk right next to a designated smoking area. It would take consideration and compromise on everyone’s part.
You clearly implied that 30% of BSU students smoke because you said that we are "alienating over one fourth of our students."
I completely agree with all of the above, H.
When someone can't walk into a building on campus without wading through clouds of cigarette smoke (because despite the previous of smoking within a certain distance of entrances, smokers still gathered around EVERY entrance), I think it disingenuous to put the burden on non-smokers. They aren't the ones polluting their bodies and the air with cigarettes, they aren't the ones inconveniencing the non-smoking student body.
I don't think its fair to use heath issues. Asthma is a serious health concern for many people, but cigarette smoke isn't the only thing that triggers it. If we are going to use that argument then you would have to also say that dogs aren't allowed on campus. It's not fair to pick and choose like that.
As far as the argument goes about those who want to quit and the ban "helping" them, I think that's also invalid. That would be like saying getting rid of all the junk food available on campus will help fat people who want to be thin. No, it won't. They will just leave campus to get food. Same with most smokers. It might suck that they can't have it on campus anymore, but I highly doubt you could find any who appreciate the ban. And who are these people that think it's ok to tell them what they should and should not do with their bodies?
When the smoke is outside, the only way it's a health risk to others is if they are inhaling from the mouths of those exhaling. Back away from them and it won't effect you at all.
Solution: designated smoking areas so that those who don't want to be around smoke don't have to be and those who smoke don't have to leave campus.
I agree with Alexis. I graduated a few years back, and despite the regulation of 30 feet (if I remember right) from any major entrance, I always had to walk through a crowd of 7-10 individual smokers. Drove me nuts! It would cause pretty big problems for me, so I had to take a deep breath and hold it as I walked through the cloud. I won't say this was always the case, but it happened at least daily.
Another thought on the comparison of removing junk food from campus. I think it WOULD help those that are trying to quit. If they can't get what they want on campus, they have to put forth more effort to give in to that desire. Whether that is smoking or eating. If it is more difficult (I.E. leaving campus to go get snack food), it is less likely to happen.
It is troubling to see so many accepting the Corporate-Government raps on "smoking", where we are supposed to despise the behavior of individual smokers, but ignore that typical cigarettes are virtual Industrial Waste Incinerators, no more just tobacco (the alleged villain) than a pistol is just Iron Ore.
It's as if no one knows anything about how that other smokable, medicinal, natural plant, cannabis, got prohibited. Same deal…demonize the plant and its users. The rest is easy…there being no sources of thorough information available in the mainstream.
Whether one "likes" smoke or not, the "anti smoke" crusade is about distracting us from the grave harms caused to smokers (and others) for almost a century from pesticide residues in so-called "tobacco products", and dioxins from the chlorine adulterants (pesticides and bleached paper), and the "legally" added burn accelerants, the cancer-causing radiation from certain still-legal phosphate fertilizers, and any of over 1000 untested, often toxic non-tobacco additives.
Notice the interesting fact that Not ONE prohibition law uses any studies about PLAIN tobacco to justify the bans. They SAY "tobacco" but may mean Industrially Contaminated tobacco, or cigarettes made with no tobacco at all. "Smoking" laws are entirely based on false and incomplete "science", that benefits the cigarette industry greatly by ignoring what that industry DID to cigarettes, and to millions of smokers. To accept that Natural Plants are the big villains here is….incomprehensible.
To blame and prosecute and exile duped, Guinea-pigged, unprotected, unwarned and uninformed, AND uncompensated smokers for the health effects of THAT…is beneath contempt. Sure, most folks jump on smokers (instead of the manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and their friends in government who allowed it all), because they don't KNOW what a cigarette is. Also, it is much easier to dump on individual smokers than on the cigarette cartel…INCLUDING the Dows, Duponts, Monsantos, Bayers, etc etc etc that SUPPLY the cigarette industry with so many deadly and dangerous cigarette components. How many know that Dow and Dupont and Monsanto, et ilk, are PART and PARCEL of the cigarette industry?…and part of most cigarettes? How many know that top Health Insurers invest BILLIONS in the top cigarette makers? Don't know that?
Ignorance is not bliss.
Google up "Fauxbacco" and "Bill Drake Smoke And Illusion" for two sources of info necessary to speak knowingly about this issue.
I think a lot of people are aware of the nastiness of corporations and insurance companies. I also think that people know that these companies are the source of the problem. However, I for one wonder why that people with this awareness don't at least quit smoking Malboros, Winstons, and Camels. If more people were just rolling a natural tobacco cigarette the general public would not have grounds to complain about inhaling all of the chemicals that are added to the cigarettes by major companies.
I don't think the journalist went far past google in doing her research on this one
It's interesting to hear all these students complain about smell. Oh my gosh, what will you do when you have to go get a JOB! Diesel mechanic – poisonous manufacturing plants – emission testing – dairy farms – milk plants. It might be a good idea to pull your thumbs out of your mouths before too long or the effect of real life may just overwhelm you!
Speaking of alienation, has anyone considered the New Students. I can already hear them saying, "What!, you mean I can't get an education because I smoke once an hour?". Funny how Mr. Schlapper seems to be all about well-being, but doesn't take into account all the smokers that have passed up further education because of this new policy. It's going on. I would move to Pocatello tomorrow to attend ISU if they had the same program I'm taking at BSU.
It's interesting to hear all these students complain about smell. Oh my gosh, what will you do when you have to go get a JOB! Diesel mechanic – poisonous manufacturing plants – emission testing – dairy farms – milk plants. It might be a good idea to pull your thumbs out of your mouths before too long or the effect of real life may just overwhelm you!
Yeah cause that's why we're all in college to work at manufacturing plants and dairy farms. No offense intended to these vocations put this is a petty argument.
petty good. Did you forget that Idaho's top job market is Agriculture? Lets see here, automation engineers(manufacturing), chemistry majors(food plants), Veterinarians(farm), Civil Engineers(dairy/road construction), Mechanical Engineers, Law Enforcement(where ever they have to be). There wouldn't be any need for paper pushing, if these didn't exist.
petty good. Did you forget that Idaho's top job market is Agriculture? Lets see here, automation engineers(manufacturing), chemistry majors(food plants), Veterinarians(farm), Civil Engineers(dairy/road construction), Mechanical Engineers, Law Enforcement(where ever they have to be). There wouldn't be any need for paper pushing, if these didn't exist.
petty good. Did you forget that Idaho's top job market is Agriculture? Lets see here, automation engineers(manufacturing), chemistry majors(food plants), Veterinarians(farm), Civil Engineers(dairy/road construction), Mechanical Engineers, Law Enforcement(where ever they have to be). There wouldn't be any need for paper pushing, if these didn't exist.
Speaking of alienation, has anyone considered the New Students. I can already hear them saying, "What!, you mean I can't get an education because I smoke once an hour?". Funny how Mr. Schlapper seems to be all about well-being, but doesn't take into account all the smokers that have passed up further education because of this new policy. It's going on. I would move to Pocatello tomorrow to attend ISU if they had the same program I'm taking at BSU.