Spartan Daily

Smoking at SJSU: A heated debate

Sophomore political science major Trevor Raineri said he enjoys spending the 15 minutes he has between classes to get away from it all. For Raineri, that means lighting up a cigarette.

“I think smoking is a right that everyone has,” he said. “It’s a right that we have as students, and we should be able to do it.”

Smoking Corner

But with an increasing amount of information and studies being conducted abouttobacco-related health risks, including a long-standing warning by the surgeon general, some colleges have pushed to ban smoking on campus.

The student coalition Cough, a statewide CSU group with a chapter at SJSU, is currently circulating a survey at SJSU to ascertain how students, faculty and administrators feel about smoking, according to Laurie Morgan, assistant director for Campus Wellness, who is spearheading the survey.

Podcast with Morgan:

“It’s not trying to deny people an option to smoke,” she said. “It’s just saying it’s not fair to expose everyone to these health risks, all the risks that are attached to tobacco use.”

Testing the waters

The survey was funded by two grants, one from Santa Clara County and one from the California Youth Advocacy Network, an organization that advocates for a smoke-free California working under the fiscal sponsorship of the Public Health Foundation Enterprises, a non-profit organization, according to their website.

The survey was sent out to students and faculty through a variety of email mailing lists and posted online beginning Oct. 1 and will close on Oct. 31 Morgan said.

Isra Ahmad, a junior health science major and member of Cough said the efforts to promote a smoke-free campus have been brewing for the last six or seven years, but no one was strongly pushing the issue.

She said after the survey comes to a close, Cough is planning to analyze the data and present its findings back to the campus by holding a forum.

“From there, we’re going to see what happens with the Academic Senate,” she said.

Personally, Ahmad said there are two reasons why this issue is important.

“First of all it’s a health cause,” she said. “There have been many, many studies that show the negative effects of secondhand smoke. It’s also a littering issue. SJSU is up there with schools that have a littering problem.”

Communications professor Shawn Spano, who specializes in developing open dialogues on challenging issues, cautioned the coalition on putting too much stock in the survey.

“I could see some real advantages to having a smoking ban completely on campus,” he said. “That makes a lot of sense to me. But at the same time do we even need that? We have bans now in buildings and so forth. So people outside, designated areas for smoking. Maybe that works too.”

Spano said that in order to understand this issue, the policy planning needs to take a back seat, and the larger campus community needs to be engaged.

“Knowing the politics of higher education, knowing the politics of this campus, the focus is on the environment and the focus is on health,” he said. “Actually outside of this campus, there is sort of the larger trend towards smoking being this sort of taboo, a bad thing to do. I think you only exacerbate that and marginalize those who smoke. That’s going to create a high level of frustration and anger on their part.”

Some students mentioned that a problem with an electronic distribution of the survey within campus-related networks is that not all groups will receive the email, and that leaves campus members without an initial voice.
Broakly Whole, a Master’s student in Civil Engineering said he thinks most smokers are considerate enough to non-smokers by choosing to smoke in corners and other isolated areas because they know people don’t want to walk through the smoke.

Whole said he thought smoking on campus was a matter of First Amendment rights.

“It’s our right to do what we want,” he said. “It’s not a privilege, but it’s a right as long as were not hurting anyone else . . . you get more pollution walking down the street.”

SJSU political science professor Kenneth Nuger said the Constitution does not provide rights for smokers.

“The fact that something is allowed does not make it a right,” he said. “The closest you can come to is suggesting that smokers have a right to privacy that allows them to claim the right to various personal activities. But any right can be regulated for a good enough reason. With tobacco, the regulations are a no brainer.”

Local solutions

San Francisco State and West Valley College are two nearby campuses that have policies in place to limit smoking on campus.

George Mageles, community resource coordinator and health educator for West Valley College said a no-smoking policy was established in August of 2008. Smoking is only allowed in the parking lot.

“This is our fourth year, and I think we have all seen less smoking on campus,” he said. “It’s not perfect, but there is definitely less. There definitely was some pushback . . . Anytime you ask someone to do something and they’re not in the mood to hear it, they might mouth off a little bit.”

In August of 2004, San Francisco State became a smoke free campus but developed three designated smoking areas on campus, and in April of 2010, the university began enforcing the policy, citing tickets for smoking outside of those areas said Jason Porth, deputy chief of staff in the office of the president.

Proth said the university president sent out a message indicating that the school tried for six years to have a policy where people would comply just because it was the right thing to do.

“When we looked at the issue and when we put into effect the enforcement provisions, it was based on the widely accepted facts that this is more than just an issue for those who are smoking, and it has larger effects,” he said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s fact sheet on the health effects of secondhand smoke found on their website, secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, hundreds that are toxic and about 70 that can cause cancer.

Brittany Patterson, Spartan Daily

Students speak

Yan Yin Choy, A.S. director of student rights and responsibilities said she thinks there should be a smoking ban on campus.

“It’s definitely a personal choice, but it’s also a matter of respecting other peoples’ rights and environments,” she said. “Not everyone wants to be a in a smoking campus.”

Engineering student Shawn Poudeo, said smoking helps him relieve stress.

“I think we should not ban smoking but definitely go for a designated spot,” he said. “We can meet new people as well and talk about it.”

Morgan said ultimately Cough would like to see SJSU become a smoke-free campus.

“It’s about the greater good,” she said. “I don’t want to expose those who have compromised immune systems, carrying a child or have severe asthma to be exposed to secondhand smoke when they don’t have to be.”

Ultimately, Spano said that simplifying this issue into two sides is unreasonable.

“I think we get stuck,” he said. “I’m for it. You’re against it. After awhile you just run out of gas. You’ve got to dig deeper.”