What do you think about a campus-wide ban on smoking?

They did it successfully at Ohio State last year… 55,000 students on one of the biggest campuses in the country.

I think that restrictions on smoking in open-air environments are a moral rather than a health and safety regulation. As you can see from the gazebo situation, you end up creating congestion when you push people who smoke into certain areas.

It’s a judgment against people for the way they choose to live their lives. Even if it’s stupid, they should be allowed to do it – and in the open air, it’s an annoyance rather than anything else.

If they’re going to do that, they should ban people texting while walking, talking loudly on their cell phones, and the other types of behavior that make you annoyed when you see other people doing them.

@iamthemob It’s often not just about congestion. There is often an issue with cigarette litter because the people that aren’t near the ashtray (which is usually in the gazebo from my experience) just through their cigarette butts on the ground.

I personally think it’s a good thing and I was really happy when my old college talked about doing it. I finished there before it went into action though.

All drugs should be banned from public places. Except Coffee of course.

Since smoking cigarettes is not a law violation, i totally disagree with the smoking ban. smoking, in the open air and using the proper butt cans, hurts no one, except the smoker.

This is a personal choice, just like a persons sexual partner.

I love the idea in that all public places on the campus are smoke free, so that all people are free to come and go where and when they please with out exposure to smoke. However as a devil’s advocate, having designated smoking areas in non central location is sufficient for nonsmokers to avoid secondhand smoke. Besides, what is the point of smoking inside a car with the windows down vs standing outside the car and smoking?

Second hand smoke is a threat to the health of those that get caught in it. If they can smoke where no one else is going to get the second hand smoke then it should be allowed but out in the open during a clear windless day is not going to work.

I am a non-smoker, but I feel conflicted about the idea of a campus-wide ban. I agree with @iamthemob that bans in this vein seem more like a push of morality than health concerns.

The designated smoking areas at my university are in high-traffic areas (the Marketplace, outside the library, etc) and the bans aren’t enforced much (as smokers often walk around with their cigarettes – I know because I pass them daily.) We do have a littering problem, too. I’m not sure what the best route would be to clear these issues up… but a complete ban just doesn’t sit well with me, no matter how much I hate the smell of smoke.

I disagree with it.

What is up with those that throw their butts where ever they want. It is awful to go walking and find those dirty things all over the place. You even see drivers throw out the butt while driving down the street. They should get a big fine for doing so. A complete ban doesn’t set well with me either.

They should have stuck to the gazebos. The smokers had their chance and they messed it up. You wont get any complaint from me. If it where a totally public area maybe I would think otherwise.

I don’t smoke but I disagree with it. Smokers are becoming lepers and smoking isn’t illegal.

My college doesn’t allow smoking. I personally am not against it. My dad smokes. But it’s kind of nice to not see cig butts all over the ground.

More and more colleges are becoming “No Smoking”.
I have been on some campuses that the sign for “No Butts” was at the street entrance to the parking lot. Once you came on the property it was lights out….

Why the new ban? @poisonedantidote said something about “they had their chance”. Does this mean that there was an issue with litter that continued after a warning? I don’t smoke but I don’t feel that I have the right to tell someone else not to smoke. On the other hand, I don’t want to breathe someone else’s smoke, nor should I have to see unsightly cigarette butts and crumpled packs on the ground.
When I go for walks, I generally take a bag with me and I pick up trash that I see on the ground. I prefer not to pick up butts for a few reasons.
Could the smokers not be somewhere away from doors? I don’t like walking thrugh a cloud of smoke when I enter or exit a building, but I don’t care if smokers have a nice kiosk or shelter…

I think it is too bad.

Can’t believe people give two craps about cigarette buts – no one here even blinks an eye stepping over the homeless, but cigarette butts…yeah, a real problem.

@Trillian As mentioned in the details, smoking kiosks ave been in use but students spill over onto the walkways (and even outside of buildings near air intake valves.) I think the issue is secondhand smoke rather than litter.

@john65pennington

“smoking, in the open air and using the proper butt cans, hurts no one”

Sorry, not true.

I am one of many people who will have health issues if I happen to breathe in a lungful of smoke from an outdoor smoker. My throat will constrict, my eyes will water, I’ll start coughing…not pleasant.

My right to breathe clean air trumps the smoker’s right to kill himself slowly in public.

I applaud all such bans.

@janbb Um…“On the other hand, I don’t want to breathe someone else’s smoke, nor should I have to see unsightly cigarette butts and crumpled packs on the ground.”
So we have a sentence with a comma. The first part of the sentence addresses second hand smoke, the second part addresses litter. I asked if this might be the reason for the ban. I also stated how I personally feel about litter.
Allow me to state my position here more clearly; I don’t think that smoking should be banned entirely, just placed so that non smokers do not have to breathe the smoke. I also think that it would just be common courtesy for people in general not to make nuisances of themselves with their trash. Obviously, someone is going to have to clean that up. Mmmmmkay?

@Trillian Didn’t mean to sound snarky which sounds like how you took what I said; just trying to clarify. Sorry if I ruffled your feathers a bit.

Thank you. I did feel like you were looking to nit pick when I was in basic agreement that a ban is not only ridiculous but possibly counter producive.
I think that smokers thinking aboutwanting a cigarette are less apt o be productive, like being hungry. You can’t focus properly if you are hungry, or having a nicotine fit.

If someone is bothered by smoking, and thinks their health triumphs over a smoker’s rights, than anyone choosing to drive a car, run an air conditioner, or do anything else that produces exhaust that is damaging to one’s health should therefore be subject to the same restrictions. Smoking, in fact, is less insidious than these other forms as, if you see someone smoking, you can avoid encountering it, where much of the other exhaust is invisible in most cases, and the sources almost ubiquitous.

Cigarettes have over 200 additives to it and I frankly don’t want to have them transfered in secondary smoke into my body. Hopefully exhaust will slow as the world trys to go green. Anyone that wants to smoke can but they will have to think of others and not pass it on to those that don’t want too.

I think there should be a designated area for smoking. I am a non-smoker also and I agree, I think it’s a little inconsiderate to the people who do smoke. The people who smoke and pollute the area with their cigarette butts, now that’s a different story.

I don’t like cigarette smoke. Anywhere. I don’t like having to walk through it on my way out of my building. I don’t like it when someone sits on my neighbor’s steps and smokes, and I can’t stand on my porch without gagging. I don’t like it when smoke drifts in my house when the windows are open. I don’t like it when I’m out in the middle of nowhere, and someone walks past smoking and I have to move somewhere else just to get away from it. I especially don’t any of these things on very humid days because the smoke just lingers and lingers

I think that on private property, the owner has the right to do very many things, including banning smoking. They don’t allow other annoying activities like car races. Why should they allow smoking? It’s private property, they can do virtually everything then want.

Public property is different. I’d love to ban smoking in my city, but that just ain’t gonna happen. Like cigarette smoke, I’d love to ban poorly operating cars that let out smells from burning oil to poorly functioning exhaust systems. I think we should eliminate mandatory inspections for the first five years of a car’s life and require inspections with increasing frequency after that, until it’s twice a year.

I would like to get something done about the sewage treatment plant, too. When the wind is just right and the air is humid enough, this foul odor creeps across my part of the city and it is truly foul!

Clean fresh air. Reduce as many sources of air pollutions as possible. That’s what I want.

I hate cigarettes, but I do not support a campus wide smoking ban.

Smoking should be banned everywhere.

@YARNLADY – Banning something that people are going to do anyway that is mostly harmful for them, gives them physical pleasure, and can be handled responsibly by a consenting adult is the sure-fire way to create a black market.

I like the NYC tactic – have you bought cigarettes here? They run almost $13 a pack on average. It’s awesome because it spreads the health costs of smoking to the smokers, raises government revenues, and disincentivizes smoking generally.

@iamthemob The most relevant thing you said is can be handled responsibly by a consenting adult. In my experience, those people are very few and far between.

The rest of us are stuck with paying their medical costs when they become disabled, and hospital costs are elevated for us all because of them.

The NYC tactic creates a whole new set of criminals who steal to support their habit, and the black market you have brought up is growing rapidly.

It’s unfortunate that people simply do not act in their own best interest when addiction rears it’s ugly head. Even banning doesn’t work, but it greatly reduces the problem.

@YARNLADY – I would like to see how the increase in cigarette prices in the NYC area has created an increase in the crime rate. The additional taxes would, in fact, be used to offset the costs – I don’t know where this information is coming from.

A ban creates a black market where the product is unregulated and all costs are shifted to the non-consumer and consumer alike. And regarding the increase in crime, well – Prohibition opened up funding opportunity for organized crime and increased violent criminal activity significantly; the war on drugs has had the same effect on increasing violent crime, and the black market funds gang warfare as well as terrorism and human rights violations in the third world; and making prostitution illegal makes it impossible to track the spread of STDs, prevents women in the sex work industry from going to the police when they are raped and beaten, and has made trafficking in women and children easier for traffickers as those who are forced into the sex industry can be deported for committing crimes in the U.S., so cannot ask protection from U.S. police forces because they will have to confess to a crime that will ban them from the country.

Considering that obesity has become the #1 killer in the U.S., banning smoking on campus seems more about a moral judgment based in health myths as long as areas on campus allow people to eat junk food on campus – and considering that the costs associated with obesity have been estimated at $150 billion dollars a year and will only increase, I fail to see how banning smoking is either (1) better than a vice tax program, or (2) how it is justifiable from a health-care cost perspective when other practices are continued.

@iamthemob All good points. Still, when I visit other states that haven’t banned smoking in public places, I am very uncomfortable. I though of inventing a smoking hood that all smokers must wear to keep it to themselves.

I would like to see the day when people have grown up enough to act in their own best interest, but I doubt I will live to see it. I was born in the wrong century..

@YARNLADY – I would love to see a world where people had no need to get high. Considering that it’s pretty much always happened in one way or another – alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes, opium – I think that you’re not really going to find a century where people aren’t doing it.

@iamthemob Not yet

I think it’s pretty ridiculous. It’s a legal activity—no reason not to have an outdoor smoking area for students and staff.

@YARNLADY

I’ve worn a gas mask when I’ve had to walk through casinos to get to a show in the (non-smoking) theater.

@crisw I had the customer service escort me on a company provided wheel chair, and I carried a little personal oxygen breather. They took some hallways that don’t go directly through the casino.

You know, many companies are becoming non-smoking companies. Apparently they can test your blood/urine for it now? Not sure how that works but you have to sign agreements to work for those companies saying you do not nor will you smoke. I think this is such an invasion of privacy. I am mostly a non smoker and occasionally have a hooka full of shisha and if that lost me my job I would be so pissed and probably sue someone.