Smoke clears

Tulane’s Tobacco Free Campus Policy, passed in May 2008 by the University Senate, has been enacted.

The policy bans smoking within 25 feet of any university building doorway. The Student Health Center installed 20 green smoking poles around campus to indicate areas where smoking is permitted. The SHC said that these areas are strategically located to limit secondhand smoke exposure to fellow students.

There are currently no penalties for smoking away from the designated smoking areas, but officials hope students and faculty respect the rule.

“We made sure that these smoking areas are safe and accessible,” Wellness and Health Promotion Director Scott Tims said. “A smoking area could be next to a building, just away from the door. Our goal was to make sure people were not having to walk through second-hand smoke.”

The university is giving students and staff time to adjust to the new policy.

“We are in an education stage right now; we want to make sure everyone understands the university’s policy,” Tims said. “In six months to a year from now, we want to reconvene and try to decide a punishment with student input. I don’t want to be the only one who decides.”

Though the policy states that smoking outside designated areas is prohibited, concrete ash trays still exist on campus, leading to confusion.

“I know they send mixed message,” Tims said. “In reality, I can’t expect you to smoke in the designated smoking areas when there are ash trays all over campus. We’re in the process of trying to remove all the ash trays from campus, and we’re not going to punish people for using them in the interim.”

Tims also said he understands the anger from the smoking community about the smoking policy. He said the policy is in place to protect the wellness of the campus — not to incite a war on smokers.

“We are not out to be the smoking police or to punish people for smoking,” he said. “We just want to protect the health of Tulane’s campus.” he said.

The policy’s name feeds additional confusion. Though Tulane’s policy is called the Tobacco Free Campus Policy, it does not prohibit the use of smokeless tobacco on campus. Chewing tobacco and other smokeless types of tobacco are not limited to the smoking areas and are allowed anywhere on campus.

Nationwide, campuses are becoming completely tobacco free. The Universities of Maine and Florida have banned tobacco usage on their campuses and the Iowa and Arkansas state legislatures have both passed laws outlawing tobacco usage on all state campuses. These policies and laws ban all forms of tobacco on campuses, including smokeless tobacco.

University of Maine Representative Joe Car said that banning tobacco was a matter of public health.

“At the University of Maine, it’s a public health initiative,” Car said. “It relates to those who have addictions and those exposed to secondhand smoke. There’s an abundance of information that shows the reduction of the use of tobacco has a positive impact on any community.” University of Arkansas representative Steve Voorhies said he agrees.

“At the University of Arkansas, we know there is no health benefit to smoking,” he said.

Both representatives said they encourage patience with the changes in smoking policy and culture. The University of Maine has enacted a three-step, multi-year program to shift the smoking culture on their campus. The University of Arkansas’s current estimates show that 25 percent of its campus still uses tobacco.

“This is complicated,” Voorhies said. “It’s not passing a rule and everything changes overnight. A lot of our smokers on campus are staff — how do you threaten someone’s job because they smoke? It’s a process, it takes time.”

Students across campus are taking active positions on the policy.

“Secondhand smoke is not pleasant for anyone who is around it,” said freshman Katherine Schuff, a non-smoker. “It’s not fun to walk through a cloud of smoke from the person in front you and have your eyes start to water and start to gag. I’m happy the new policy discourages smoking because it’s bad for you, and it’s bad for the people around you.”

Other students said they were unaware of the new rule.

“I understand why they’re doing it,” freshman Justine Ades said. “Smoking creates a bad reputation for Tulane, but this is college and people are going to do what they want. I don’t think it will work.”