No more smoking?
USU looks to join more than 150 schools nationwide that have adopted a restricted tobacco policy which either limits or completely bans tobacco use on campus.
Kevin Abernethy, Academic Senate president and sponsor of this legislation, said USU is currently considering banning the sell or use of tobacco products on campus, or at the very least, designating the areas where people who choose to smoke will be allowed to. If this piece of legislation is approved, all tobacco products would be removed from the Quickstop and students would most likely no longer be allowed to smoke on the lower Taggart Student Center patio.
“It is ironic that as an institution of higher learning, we allow something that has been proven to be harmful,” Abernethy said. “As an institution of higher learning, we should be a frontrunner in banning the use of it.”
Abernethy said the problem is not so much that some people have chosen to smoke but rather that they are smoking in areas where people who have chosen not to smoke are being forced to breathe in the smoke.
“Secondhand smoke infringes on the rights of others,” Abernethy said. “By selling something unsafe, we are contradicting our own goal of a healthy campus.”
Abernethy said one of the big reasons they are looking to ban smoking is the location of the Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the USU campus and the studies that have proved secondhand smoke is more harmful for children. If the students remained at the school all day, it would be one thing, but the kids are often going over to campus for field trips, and they are walking through cigarette smoke, such as when they enter the TSC, he said.
“People are smoking at the bus stops, and kids take those buses too. This exposes them to chemicals that can be very detrimental, especially at their developmental stage,” Abernethy said.
Abernethy said he realized every time he walked into the TSC, he was breathing in secondhand smoke when he passed the patio. He said he realized everything he was studying in his senior capstone project (the effects of secondhand smoke) for his public health major and what was actually happening was the same.
“Tobacco is a class-A carcinogen, which is the worst kind. It has been proven to cause cancer in humans,” Abernethy said. “We don’t want to promote something harmful, and selling something steps into promoting it, so it needs to not be sold here.”
According to a 2007 study done by the Student Health and Wellness Center, 77 percent of students would support a tobacco-free campus. Abernethy said students should be able to breathe smoke-free air if that is their choice, and if an area where students can smoke can’t be agreed upon, then areas where smoking is restricted will be listed instead. The areas currently under discussion to have smoking banned are the TSC patio because it is a high traffic area, and the bus stops because kids often ride those same buses. Abernethy said he is open to suggestions and would love to hear from students, especially those in favor of this legislation.
“It is easier to complain than to compliment, but we need students who care about this because it is only the students who are against this that are talking,” Abernethy said.
Students can contact Abernethy at kevin.a@aggiemail.usu.edu.
-debrajoy.h@aggiemail.usu.edu