When the Faculty Senate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst voted in favor of banning tobacco across campus last month, a small group of students displayed their disdain in an obvious way—by lighting up outside the building where the vote took place.
They insisted that the ban, which includes chewing tobacco as well as smoking, threatened their individual rights. Some brought homemade signs: “I’m 18 and have a right to smoke.”
The ban, says Benjamin Taylor, a senior and a smoker who attended the meeting, amounts to a “morality campaign.”
“This represents a modern-day temperance movement based on the idea that tobacco is worthy of pariah status, and it’s impossible for anyone to be a responsible tobacco user,” Mr. Taylor says. Besides, he adds, what’s the justification for banning smokeless tobacco when those products harm only the user?
The Amherst campus isn’t alone in its transition to a “tobacco-free” policy; since the early 90s, colleges have gradually banned smoking in most residence halls, and the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation estimates that over 500 campuses have adopted no-smoking policies as of April. The ban at Massachusetts reaches well beyond residence halls and offices: It bars all tobacco products on campus, which means no smoking in parking lots or chewing tobacco in cars.
Like Massachusetts, institutions that have banned smoking or tobacco have faced criticism from disgruntled tobacco users and proponents of personal rights. But if history repeats itself, the opposition at Massachusetts will quickly fizzle out, as it did on other campuses.
No ‘Right to Smoke’
Officials at the University of Kentucky decided in early 2009 to adopt a campuswide tobacco ban by the end of the year. The ban, which also prohibits tobacco use inside cars on campus, drew criticism from some vocal smokers and students. But from early on, the opposition was sloppily coordinated.
Ellen J. Hahn, co-chair of Kentucky’s Tobacco-Free Campus Task Force, says students created a Facebook page to spread the word about a “smoke-in” on the first day of the ban. Although several hundred Facebook users RSVP’d to the event, only around 50 showed up, she estimates.
“It was more hype than reality,” says Ms. Hahn, a nursing professor who also directs the Tobacco Policy Research Program at Kentucky.
The goal of Kentucky’s ban is to promote health in a state known for tobacco production, Ms. Hahn says. It’s not a rights issue, she says; it’s a responsibility issue. “We have a huge public-health problem here, so if there’s something we can do about it, the university is a leader in our state,” Ms. Hahn says.
Even before the ban, Kentucky had forbidden smoking on its medical campus, in all university buildings and dorms, and within 25 feet of building entrances. In 2009 around two-thirds of students, staff, and faculty surveyed responded in favor of a campuswide ban. Response to the new policy has been overwhelmingly positive, aside from the initial backlash, Ms. Hahn says.
At Massachusetts, advocates for the ban also point to public health as the top reason for regulating tobacco use. “No one has a right to smoke cigarettes. It’s not in the Constitution,” says Tobias I. Baskin, chair of the Faculty Senate’s Health Council.
Mr. Taylor, the student at Massachusetts, thinks that designating smoking spots on campus would be a better way to handle the issue. But Mr. Baskin says those types of ordinances, such as the university’s current ban on smoking within 20 feet of a building, simply don’t work.
Students have also questioned the Faculty Senate’s decision to ban all tobacco products rather than just cigarettes. Chewing tobacco doesn’t create a secondhand smoke risk, many say, so what’s the problem?
“This is a straightforward, simple, comprehensive policy,” Mr. Baskin responds. “If you start making exceptions, then everything gets a little complicated and convoluted.”
Massachusetts’ policy won’t start until 2013, which leaves time for the university to raise awareness of the ban and advertise tobacco-cessation programs.
‘An Education Approach’
But awareness and enforcement are different matters. And colleges with campuswide bans say they don’t expect to eradicate tobacco use.
Massachusetts plans to rely on students and staff to police themselves, without the threat of fines or citations, Mr. Baskin says. Critics contest that the ban is unenforceable, but to Mr. Baskin, it’s the principle of the thing.
“If it’s so impossible to enforce, why are they bothering to protest it?” Mr. Baskin says. “Peer pressure is very, very strong, and I think the fact that you’re not allowed to smoke on campus will suffice for a large number of people.”
Kentucky, too, relies on peer pressure to enforce its ban. If a student or employee sees someone smoking on campus, he or she is expected to inform the smoker of the tobacco-free policy. On its Web site, Kentucky has posted scripts and tips for how to approach someone. Articles in the student newspaper, however, have reported that people continue to smoke on campus, and that few students are willing to report their peers.
Repeat offenders can be reported either to the dean or to the human-resources department. So far, compliance hasn’t been a problem, with the exception of one employee who was fired after multiple violations. More commonly, the university encourages people to take advantage of resources to help them quit, which include free nicotine replacement, such as patches or gum, and behavioral support. Ms. Hahn says five times as many people are using those resources—mostly the free nicotine replacement—as were before the ban.
“It’s a policy that we don’t want to have a heavy-handed approach,” Ms. Hahn says. “We’d much rather have an education approach, yet we have to make sure people know we’re serious.”
At the University of Iowa, where a campuswide smoking ban took effect in 2008, the policy is enforced by the threat of a $50 ticket.
Iowa’s ban, which forbids only smoking, was slated to begin in 2009 but took effect in 2008 when the state passed legislation that banned smoking at educational facilities. The $50 citation is a requirement under the Iowa Smokefree Air Act, says Joni Troester, who directs Iowa’s Wellness program and helped to lead the ban’s implementation. The university didn’t originally plan to fine smokers, and there have been few citations issued since the ban started. Officers wrote 25 tickets in 2009 and only 12 tickets in 2010.
“I just let officers use their discretion, like you do with a speeding ticket or anything else,” says Charles D. Green, an assistant vice president and director of public safety at Iowa. Officers didn’t write any citations during 2008, when the ban began, because they wanted to allow ample time for people to become aware of the policy.
Iowa officials say the ban has had an impact even though citations have been scarce. There are visibly fewer people smoking on campus, Mr. Green says, and early data show a slight decrease in the number of students and employees who identify as smokers, at the same time as more students and staff are using tobacco-cessation programs.
Accommodating Smokers
Yet as many institutions move toward bans that span entire campuses, others are recognizing smokers’ concerns. Last spring the University of Maryland’s Faculty Senate didn’t go to a vote on a proposed campuswide smoking ban; instead, it recommended that the university continue enforcing a rule that bans smoking around buildings.
The University of South Florida’s main campus, in Tampa, also moved in favor of a policy that is more accommodating to smokers. This month a task force recommended that the university adopt only a partial ban.
“We want to be respectful of smokers,” says Stephanie M. Bryant, chair of the task force at South Florida. “We recommended the partial ban as a first step because what we discovered was even the schools that have implemented full bans, like Florida International and the University of Florida—they’re having a lot of issues with compliance.”
By the start of the 2011-12 academic year, South Florida will pinpoint areas on campus where smoking is permitted. The university’s first concern is secondhand smoke, although that doesn’t mean the university doesn’t want to promote a healthy environment for everyone, Ms. Bryant says.
“Many of the comments we received from staff and students said, Smoking is legal, and we don’t understand why we should be stigmatized or marginalized,” she says. “We don’t want to gang up and jump on smokers.”
For institutions like the University of Massachusetts, where opposition has remained vocal, protests are unlikely to change the new policy. As the student population turns over, fewer will remember a time before the ban existed. Josh Davidson, a senior and a member of the Student Government Association, won’t be on campus by the time the ban starts, in 2013. But he still opposes it on principle and says many of the younger student senators feel the same way.
“To really sustain any type of intensity on an issue in student government is tough to do, just because you don’t have the same people there,” he says. “But my understanding from a lot of people on the senate who are coming back next year is that they’re absolutely looking to do something about it.”
