thought college was the bastion for free thought
 

not that i smoke or recommend it

http://www.click2houston.com/backtos...46/detail.html



Colleges To Smokers: 'You're Not Welcome'
Smoke-Free Schools Started Popping Up In Early 2000s
By Stephanie Steinberg, Special to CNN

POSTED: Wednesday, August 31, 2011
UPDATED: 6:47 am CDT August 31, 2011

(CNN) -- This summer, a group of University of Kentucky students and staff has been patrolling campus grounds -- scouting out any student, employee or visitor lighting a cigarette.

Unlike hall monitors who cite students for bad behavior, the Tobacco-free Take Action! volunteers approach smokers, respectfully ask them to dispose of the cigarette and provide information about quit-smoking resources available on campus.

The University of Kentucky is one of more than 500 college campuses across the country that have enacted 100% smoke-free or tobacco-free policies as of July 1. Although policy enforcement varies from school to school, most prohibit smoking on all campus grounds, including athletic stadiums, restaurants and parking lots.

An increasing number of colleges adopted smoke-free or tobacco-free policies in the past few years, according to American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation Project Manager Liz Williams. In the past year alone, 120 campuses were added to the smoke-free list.

The most successful policies have been grass-roots efforts driven by students and campus employees.

"They typically come about because students and faculty are questioning the role of tobacco in an educational setting and deciding to discourage its use and exposure," Williams said.

About 46 million Americans age 18 and older smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A 2010 American College Health Association report found that out of 30,093 students surveyed at 39 colleges, 4.4% had smoked every day in the past 30 days.

Since the first surgeon general report declaring the negative effects of smoking in 1964, smoking has become "socially less acceptable" among people of all ages, especially college students, says Laura Talbott-Forbes, chairwoman of the health association's Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Coalition.

"There's a very health-conscious, socially aware student that we have on campus these days," she said.

The Smoke-Free Spree

It wasn't until the early 2000s that 100% smoke-free campuses began popping up across the United States.

Ty Patterson, the former vice president of Student Affairs at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri, says he started the first smoke-free campus in 2003, but the idea was planted in 1999.

"The president came to me and said, 'Ty, we've got problems. You can't get in and out of doorways without going through a corridor of smoke,' " Patterson recalled.

Patterson, who had quit smoking two years prior, set out to find a higher education institution that had managed to eliminate tobacco on campus. To Patterson's dismay, there weren't any.

"When I explained to (schools) what we were thinking about doing, they said ... 'We'd love to be able to do that, but we don't know how,' " he said.

Over the next four years, Patterson developed a policy in which trained staff members held polite conversations with students and faculty who violated the smoking rules. The first violation is a warning. The second and third result in $15 fines or two hours spent picking up tobacco litter. For any further violations, the offender is placed on probation or asked to leave the school.

Although some employees vehemently opposed the policy, Patterson says, no staff member ever reached the third violation, and only two students were placed on probation from the time the school enforced the policy in October 2004.

Ozarks Technical spent more than 3½ years developing the initiative and educating students and staff about the forthcoming policy. However, Patterson -- who has now helped more than 500 schools, hospitals and businesses implement smoking bans as the director of the National Center for Tobacco Policy -- says most campuses today can effectively institute a policy in one year since there's less resistance to the concept than in 2003.

It Really Works

The University of Michigan enacted a smoke-free policy on July 1. Campus officials spent three years researching policies and forming focus groups, committees and surveys to seek student and faculty input.

Since the ban was implemented, school Chief Health Officer Dr. Robert Winfield says, it's uncommon to see smokers anywhere but along city of Ann Arbor sidewalks -- where smoking is permitted. He cited one entrance to the Michigan Union known as a smoker hot spot. When he visited the area recently, he noted, "there wasn't a smoker in sight."

In 2009, the state of Kentucky had one of the highest smoking rates at 25.6%, according to the CDC.

Since the University of Kentucky turned smoke-free in November that year, an increasing number of people have sought tobacco treatment services. In 2008, 33 people enrolled in a tobacco cessation program. After the policy's first year, enrollment rose to 146 people, according to Ellen Hahn, director of UK's Tobacco Policy Research Program. The number of nicotine replacement coupons redeemed by students and faculty also increased from 124 to 470 in the same period.

For smokers visiting the campus, UK offers nicotine cessation products, such as gum or patches, for $5 at several locations.

"We're trying to make it comfortable for people so they don't feel like they have to light up and violate the policy," Hahn said.

Policy Patrol

During the first semester of a smoking ban, Patterson recommends that universities not come down with a heavy fist and instead educate the community about the policy and the negative effects of tobacco.

Nearly two years later, the University of Kentucky still doesn't exercise strict enforcement. "We certainly don't have smoking police," Hahn said.

Instead, smoke-free supporters like senior Melissa McCann, a Tobacco-free Take Action! volunteer, remind smokers of the ban. McCann said the 10 smokers she asked to extinguish their cigarettes this summer all complied.

"In a tobacco state, you might think we'd have more backlash and opposition than we did," said Hahn, explaining that only a few students held a protest the day the policy launched.

Regardless of the health benefits, opponents argue that smoke-free policies infringe on people's rights. Michigan senior Graham Kozak, president of the College Libertarians, says smoking is a "personal choice."

"It's not within the scope of the university's responsibilities to decide that smoking is an activity that we as adults shouldn't engage in," he said.

Jonathan Sternberg, an attorney currently fighting a citywide smoking ban in Springfield, Missouri, says smoking bans "just don't really make sense."

"Any time you tell (people) that they can't do something they want to do, really they're just going to do it anyway. ... All you're doing is encouraging disrespect for authority," Sternberg said.

A Smoke-Free Future

The University of Florida in Gainesville went tobacco-free in July, and Valencia College in Orlando plans to adopt the policy in 2012. This spurred students at Seminole State College of Florida to talk with administrators about following their lead, says Student Government Association President Krizia Capeles.

In response, the association plans to distribute a ballot this fall, in which students will vote for or against a smoking ban.

Patterson predicts that nearly all college campuses in the United States will be 100% smoke-free in 10 years. Talbott-Forbes, too, says it's a possibility -- mentioning how professors once smoked in their offices but can't today.

"We've gone from pushing smoking out of the building ... to now trying to push smoking totally off campus," she said.

Although it may take time to sink in, Hahn said, people eventually "get it."

"They get the idea that tobacco use just isn't accepted here."

Copyright CNN 2011

Free thought... as long as you're thinking what we're thinking...

In Kentucky, where probably half the local population smokes? Good luck with that.

Retards. I bet if it was pot, they'd leave people alone. Hypocrites.

What the hell does this have to do with free thought?
Cigarette smoke is toxic, it causes property damage and cigarette butts are an eyesore that require clean up.

You are no more free to smoke on state owned property as you are free to dump oil or anti freeze in you back yard ( into the water table )

I'm all for personal choice but when you infringe on others it is no longer "personal".
You force others to breath in the smoke.
You force everyone to pay for the remediation of smoke stained interiors and clean up of outside spaces.
If you personally own the college campus then buy all means allow smoking everywhere.
Paying a tuition bill doesn't entitle you to do what the fuck you want on campus.

At Miami University in Oxford, Oh the campus has been a smoke free campus for the last 2 years. It got more praise than bitching when it was first enacted.

Time and place

If a smoker is standing outside, or walking down a sidewalk, I don't see the big deal. As I walk past him, I am not inconvenienced any more than I am by someone who hasn't showered in a week, or by some clod asking for signatures for his pet cause.

If the place in question is a college campus where outside exactly do you think acceptable? Outside the door? A window? Along high (foot) traffic areas?

How do you prevent smoke from spreading to someone else's personal space? Coming in through a dorm\class window?

The tech college I go to throws the smokers into gazebos out in the parking lot area. That's a win-win for everyone. I hated walking up to the doors to breath in that nasty shit before they started this policy. I get enough of it at home since my family is fucking pathetic.

I think they should also ban farting in public... who wants to smell that shit?

Farts aren't loaded up with toxins that cause cancer, emphysema and other medical conditions.

Farts dont require cleanup after you let one out (except maybe the bacon strips in your underwear)

Cigarettes make people cough.
Farts make people laugh.

You have obviously not been around me after I've eaten Honeycomb.

:lol

I remember being in college and having to hold my breath when walking into and out of buildings because of the massive blue clouds of cigarette smoke just outside the doors.

I'm okay with the smoke free thing in campus.

The same can be said of a car or motorcycle. They also release toxic exhaust and can make messes. When are you going to support banning them?

How many cigarrettes do you see with emissions equipment mr weak ass argument man?

Most cigarettes have filters.:rockwoot:

It doesn't matter anyway as toxic gases are still expelled from vehicle exhaust. Even if they weren't are you going to ban pre-emissions equipment vehicles? My bike is "only" 10 years old and doesn't have a catalytic converter to be found. It came that way from the factory.

If a smoker is loitering near someone's window, I could see the issue.

If he is just walking down the street, or standing in a wide open field or against a building without any open windows, I don't see the issue. As people walk past him, they can hold their breath if they REALLY feel so threatened by one partial inhale of diluted cigarette smoke (even though they themselves probably smoke pot, and probably stand by their BBQ grill or campfire for MUCH longer periods of time)

I think Paul is a closet smoker.

Ex-smokers or the children of heavy smokers are usually the biggest complainers, in my experience. :wink:

But drinking and esctasy are OK. It's a bandwagon thing more than anything IMO.

Not together.
Too hard on the stomach. :lol:

:lol:

You can't see the difference between a mode of transportation ( which has increasingly stringent rules placed on it's emissions) and a recreation activity which serves no means other than a "nicotine fix"?

Did you know you also cannot drink alcohol anywhere you wish? There are rules in effect about where you can or cannot do it.

Ever see somebody second hand raving? It's a horrible sight..

Driving/riding can be a mode of transportation, but that doesn't mean that is all it is. Should we ban driving/riding for recreational purposes and call it a day? Maybe you have to have a note from an authority backing the validity of your trip.

I'm aware and that actually serves as a pretty good comparison. It is another rule created by uptight "puritans" who can't handle the sight of someone having a drink in front of them. It is also a rule I have ignored from time to time.

You're really reaching to draw the comparison between driving and smoking, it's just not working. "What if this, what if that about driving?" What about it? We're not talking about the rules pertaining to driving. We're talking about the right of a person to walk around and not breathe in another person's second hand smoke.

If you can equate that to car exhaust, have fun with that. Your right to travel sounds more familiar than your right to smoke cigarettes.

Despite Marijuana being Kentucky's largest cash crop they actually have very strict anti-pot laws...

All the young people leave for places with better jobs........What's left behind are old white people who complain.

There isn't any if about it, you believe my right to pollute the air should be removed while your right to pollute the air is upheld.:shrug:

Neither is a right. Unless you want to include your right to travel freely in your country. I'd like to see the line about your right to smoke marlboros in the constitution.

You have a point. I should have used another word. Substitute freedom, ability, or whatever word you want, the idea remains the same.

College campus... Private property. They can limit it if they'd like. *shrug*

I understand your point. I can understand being upset with smoking regulations. Either ban the things or piss off already.

Bullshit. I pay a couple grand each year in property taxes for the local community college, and nobody in my household is currently a student there.

It is most definitely not private property.

I don't smoke anymore, but I still think this is a bunch of bullshit. The same clowns who want "the man" to leave them alone and let them smoke pot, not bathe, and be free to slack off on someone else's dime are yelling and screaming that the same man needs to ban cigarette smoke because the very sight of someone else smoking gives them instant cancer. Fuck those clowns.

Give the smokers somewhere to smoke (like a gazebo or something) and they'll leave you alone. They prefer to be around fellow smokers than self-righteous pricks anyway.

And then you have ten thousand cigarette butts on the ground in that area. I hate to say it, but you have nobody to blame but inconsiderate smokers.

At work, the smokers clean the smoking area. Non-smokers have no responsibility for it at all. It's a beautiful thing because they rarely throw their litter on the ground because they have to clean it.

And I guess they could always sit in their vehicles and smoke in the parking lot right? Keep the funk and dirt in their car, how could that be an issue?

Ultimately it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. If I went to one of these schools I'd still smoke on campus. Give me some smoking areas with places to put butts and I'm more than happy to do that. Take it away completely and I'm smoking anywhere and firing butts on the ground at will.

My school allows smoking in certain areas. Infact the areas they allow it are very nice. Nice shade, nice benches, swings, landscaping, etc. If it was smoke free I'd study there all the time. But regardless of those areas people will smoke next to doors or where everybody chills while taking a break. During a break in my summer semester some girl lit up a cigarette and had smoke going right into my face. She got pissy at me when I asked her to go to the smoking part. Times like that I wish I could just take a dump in the smokers section or a leak on her.

I like the designated areas and feel that a lot of schools should adopt that. But if so then they need to seriously enforce that the smokers stay in the smoking section.

this X1000

I'd be fine with that. The problem you are running in to is the typical college student is a moronic twat.

College has never been a bastion of free thought, it's whatever thought your professor has and you better damn well agree with them because that ain't a god damn thing you can do to get them fired.

The Social Science/Liberal Arts buildings are my favorite for Free Thought. Don't go their way and they raise all kinds of hell. Guess that is why they have the most bitchin' building on campus while the Science and Mathematic buildings are slightly a step above a janitor's closet.