Every morning when I get to campus, the sun has only just risen, the wind is rustling through the tress and the pleasant smell of eucalyptus is drifting through the air.
Then suddenly, a repugnant cloud of smoke hits me in the face and forces its way through my nostrils or mouth and goes down into my lungs. I try to breathe out and hold my breath, but I can’t get far enough away from the toxic cloud before I need to inhale again.
“I feel like the smokers section is a chill place to hang out,” Knoi Pham, a first year biochemistry major, said. “Anywhere else, people won’t randomly talk to each other.”
I guess he’s never gone bowling, played pool or visited that room with all of the game systems in it inside the USU.
He was accepted to another university, but when he found out that smoking was completely banned there, he decided to come here instead.
California State University, Long Beach has many attributes for which it ought to be proud, but the failure to ban smoking is not one of those things.
In January 2013, the student senate voted to ban smoking and the sale of tobacco on campus, according to the Statewide Senate Report.
Two years later, long after the entire CSU ban, they are finally forming a special taskforce of 20 staff and student members to look into it. They met on January 23 and will continue to meet every month in order to determine what the best plan of implementation is.
Allow me to do your job for you, special taskforce.
In case some people don’t already know, smoking cigarettes is a leading cause of cancer.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and the second most common cancer among both men and women in the United States,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking cigarettes causes 90 percent of lung cancer.
Since this is a university where learning is the main goal, perhaps we should teach our students to take care of their bodies, as well as the bodies of their fellow second-hand smoking students and professors.
All of the freedoms we enjoy in this country, in this state and at CSULB exist under the condition that they do not impinge on other people’s health and safety.
Students, faculty and staff have the right to remain cancer free. They have the right to not worry about complications if they get a cold or the discomfort of a headache made worse by a cloud of smoke. And what about the students with asthma or cystic fibrosis?
“I would be okay with smoking on campus generally if it stayed within the designated smoking areas, but people just smoke while walking through campus,” Nathalia Diaz, a second year health science major, said.
Diaz suffers from asthma, but has been putting up with the smoke that sets her condition off for the last two years.
A lot of students are trying e-cigarettes now, and the creators say that they are safe, but that isn’t true. Besides the fact that they continue to fuel an addiction to nicotine, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration found cancer-causing substances in half the e-cigarettes they tested, according to the American Cancer Society.
“If someone is puffing on a cloud, and it smells like cherries, it’s kind of nice,” Christopher Eshe, junior psychology major, said. “Like, it’s kind of like an air freshener. Then again, if people are irritated, confine it to an area.”
Smoking causes harm to almost every single organ in the body, the CDC says on its fact sheet, and it causes more deaths each year than the human immunodeficiency virus, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries and firearm-related incidents combined.
Therefore, logic dictates that it harms almost every student who comes into contact with smoking – whether it is first-hand or second-hand.
The benefits include only the immediate gratification that comes with feeding a monstrous addiction to a harmful drug.
Doris Arreaga, a senior molecular biology major said she does not think there should be smoking on campus and that she has seen “people littering and throwing their cigarette butts anywhere.”
The findings show that the best way to implement a tobacco and nicotine consumption and sales ban at CSULB is also the most common way to ban anything anywhere – post some signs, send out a newsletter and make offenders pay a fine.
You’re welcome, special taskforce.
E-cigarettes actually are a safer and healthier alternative. The recent study that has been causing a lot of controversy about the safety of e-cigarettes found carcinogens in the vapor only when the liquid was heated to extremely high temperatures. Anyone who is trying to quit smoking or usong tobacco prodcuts should not dismiss vaping as a way to help because of misinformation that has been spread.
via: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/opinion/joe-nocera-is-vaping-worse-than-smoking.html?referrer=
There are no designated smoking areas, smokers create there own such as outside the multicultural center, or the library… essentially places where ash trays have been placed. But if you consider places with ash trays to be “designated” smoking areas, then practically the entire campus is such an area, as ash trays are located in many arterial pathways and even outside building entrances. Thus, the idea that the status-quo is that smoking on campus is restricted to particular areas, as in an airport, is entirely a misinformed opinion.
As with any sort of prohibition, a ban on smoking will not stop smoking. Especially if you note the fact that nicotine is not a trivial addiction, it is one of the most addictive substances on the planet, people will simply smoke when they think ticket-givers aren’t looking. All that entirely banning smoking will accomplish is creating another reason for students to receive tickets that will hurt the student body financially in an environment where students are already stretched. I say hell no to that.
Yes, the rights of smokers should not supersede the rights of non-smokers. Thus, smoking-is-okay-nearly-everywhere should not be the policy nor the apparent policy of CSU. There should be *actual* designated areas, not de-facto areas that are taken over by smokers. Introducing smoking tickets, while regrettable, would not be unjust if such areas were created, provided that they aren’t relegated to the absolute hinterlands of the campus. Removal of ash trays outside of the entrances to buildings would dispel the illusion that is okay to smoke there. Furthermore, cigarettes should not be sold on campus….smokers are usually pretty good about letting a fellow smoker “bum” one, and there are locations just off campus that sell tobacco. Hell, these areas would even facilitate the “interaction” that the one quoted student enjoyed.
Among smokers, there would be two camps, the considerate one’s that just want a quick smoke and are able to do so, and the inconsiderate one’s y’all complain about. The latter would get ticketed.
These are things called compromises. They are infinitely preferable to prohibition, which inevitably fails or results in injustice.
One way or another, these students got addicted to cigarettes. Typically when they were too young or vulnerable to know better or even care. Yes, they’re rights do not trump those of non-smokers, but they do have rights. Reminding them smoking is bad as if its something they never heard before ain’t going to change anything. Addiction ain’t a joke. Compromises such as these ensure the needs of the *entire* student body, including those you clearly don’t like, are accounted for.
There does not need to be a black/white, complete-ban/total-permissiveness approach to any issue.
You’re welcome special task force.
Your welcome Ms. Sawyer.