On-campus smoking ban still a work in progress

Lack of enforcement causes students to ignore smoking ban that was mandated June 1.

“There is really no enforcement,” said Director of Wellness Programs Dave Terrell.  “We’ve talked with Public Safety, but they aren’t going around and enforcing this. It’s self-policed.”

The hope is that students who are smokers just respect the nonsmokers and use the smoking stations provided. Terrell has some advice for the nonsmokers who happen to see someone having a cigarette outside a designated smoking area.

“Just remind them that we are a campus that has a designated smoking area policy,” Terrell said.

Senior psychology major Rae Weber feels the smoking policy need some tweaking.

“I find the smoking stations to be obsolete. You are already outside and by forcing all smokers to be at the same area it is only making it worse to walk through those designated areas. Not to mention trying to huddle in all together when it rains,” Weber said.

According to Terrell, there is only one system that has seen a one hundred percent success rate.

“Our Director of Student Health Services went to a conference put on by the Southern College Health Association (in 2010) and saw that four schools including Georgia College instituted some kind of smoking policy on their campus,” Terrell said.  “Three of them are doing the same thing we are, and the other implemented a complete ban of smoking on campus and that is the only one that was completely successful.”

He suggests the designated smoking areas leaves room for a lot of leeway, but SGA and the University Senate wanted to be a little lenient with the policy.

“The other three schools found it very difficult to enforce since there is really no penalty.  I think they helped a little bit but I still see people smoking outside the stations a good bit,” said Alice Loper, Director of Student Health Services.  “I personally don’t think it’s going to be totally effective unless we are completely tobacco free.”

Some students believe that the designated smoking areas are not recognizable enough, and could be part of the issue.

“Make them more recognizable. I can’t think of one place I know for sure is a designated smoking area,” said senior sociology major Ashley Lamb. “Maybe professors should start incorporating where they are located into their syllabus on the first day of class so that people are more informed.”

Others cannot really think of anything practical to keep students from using the smoking stations.

“I honestly don’t know what they could do to help prevent that. I’ve see people doing it all over campus,” said junior rhetoric major Jared Powell. “Maybe if we walked around with scissors and just cut the person’s cigarette off their face.”

Some students even believe that the smoking stations are more of a waste.

“I don’t see it being that effective. People smoke outside of them all the time,” said senior biology major Michael Christopher.  “Plus, it is outside.  That amount of second hand smoke isn’t detrimental.”

Loper doesn’t believe that students should see the smoking stations as a bad thing.

“I don’t think the smoking areas should be negative because it was a good faith effort, but the only way to be totally effective is a complete ban,” Loper said.

Terrell said if smokers are tired of walking back and forth to the smoking stations they could try to quit with help from the school.

“We offer a smoking cessation program that is sponsored by the American Lung Association, and it has about a 50 percent success rate,” Terrell said.

Either way there does not appear to be any solution in the near future to solve this problem other than more students taking the initiative to remind their peers to head to the smoking shelters.

“We just hope that students use the honor code and are respectful of those who do not want to be around other’s secondhand smoke,” Terrell said.