A campus anti-smoking group has made concerted and reasonable efforts recently to make it harder for smokers at the University to buy and smoke cigarettes on campus.
The Campus Advisory Board approached the EMU Board to lobby for a ban on cigarette sales at Erb Essentials, the EMU convenience store. The group is also seeking more strict enforcement of the University’s 10-foot rule, which states that smokers must be at least 10 feet away from a building when lighting up (the stricter rules allow for the possibility of expanding the distance to 50 feet).
For smokers, the idea of impeding the habit would clearly be an abuse of the University’s power. For anti-smoking activists, the idea would mean a cleaner campus environment and a step toward better health standards.
But for the rest of us, does the smoking issue really matter? It should, for several reasons.
At first glance, the anti-smoking effort may seem like a suppression of freedoms, and one could argue that banning cigarettes from the campus marketplace would restrict the legitimate right of smokers to purchase tobacco products at the University.
But as University Health Center Health Education Director Paula Staight told the EMU Board, the debate is “a bigger issue than the freedom to buy a cigarette.”
Not only could student smokers make the trek to 7-Eleven, located just off campus, to buy cigarettes, but the University is in a position to do its part in saving a portion of the student body from future health problems. According to http://www.webmd.com, smoking can increase the risk of lung cancer, throat cancer, emphysema, heart disease, high blood pressure, ulcers, gum disease and asthma complications. Smoking also results in coughing, poor athletic ability, sore throats, face wrinkles, stained teeth, dull skin and damage to sense of taste and smell.
Furthermore, recent studies have shown a dramatic link between smoking in college and the chance of smoking later in life. According to Health Psychology magazine, more than 90 percent of college smokers who light up on a daily basis will continue smoking for at least four years after college. Disturbingly, 50 percent of college students who smoke even occasionally run the same risk.
Nearly 33 percent of college students in America use tobacco products, according to the University, and a University Health Center survey released in spring 2003 showed that 22 percent of students at this campus identify as “regular or casual smokers.”
In fact, the University is currently part of a national study to test the success rate of tobacco control programs, according to a University press release. What better way to get started than stopping the sale of those products on campus?
That’s not to say that all the Campus Advisory Board’s arguments are sound. One argument, voiced at the EMU Board meeting, is that selling tobacco products on campus violates the University’s and EMU’s respective missions. But no specific mention of a duty to ensure the health of students is included in the EMU’s mission statement, which reads “The Erb Memorial Union. … with a commitment to the involvement and development of students, shall serve its diverse campus community by providing high quality programs, services and facilities that complement the mission of the University of Oregon.” Similarly, the University’s mission statement makes no specific mention of a responsibility to physical health of students.
Regardless, it seems to be an implied duty of the University to do everything in its power to influence the good health of students. While it’s clearly not the University’s job to preach life habits, banning the sale of tobacco products on campus will send a clear message that using tobacco products has scientifically proven negative health effects and is not endorsed by this institution.