AS Board looking for student input on potential smoking ban
By Julia Berkman
Following in the footsteps of Washington State University and Seattle Pacific University, Western’s Associated Students Board is considering taking steps towards a smoke-free campus. However, some students have concerns about the plan.
The AS Board has moved to start talking about about making Western’s campus smoke-free. In a meeting in November, the board spoke of implementation by, possibly, the end of spring quarter.
According to AS VP for Student Life Annie Gordon, the decision to start talking about a smoke-free campus was based in-part upon a small survey of students from 2014, as well as recent student concerns.
“To be super clear, the vote has not decided anything in terms of whether we support [the initiative] or not. We’re just charged with trying to represent what students are asking us to look into,” Gordon said.
The 2014 survey in question had a low turnout- only around 7 percent of the student body. Only a little over half of students were for a smoke-free campus. In another survey put out in 2016 by Prevention and Wellness Services, about 60 percent of the 4,000 students surveyed were in favor of a smoke-free campus.
Senior Brendan Morrison initially approached Gordon in October, asking for her help in making campus smoke-free. He was fed up with walking through clouds of smoke on his way to class.
Right now, Western’s only rule is that smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of an entrance to a building. Morrison, a design student who has a lung condition, feels as though students only loosely follow that rule.
“I looked into it a little more and wondered if there were other schools that were doing this. I saw that even big schools like WSU and University of Oregon have gone smoke free, so I thought, ‘Why can’t Western do the same?’” he said.
Morrison is one of many people who suffer from an allergy or condition that makes tobacco smoke intolerable.
Gordon was sympathetic to those concerns.
“How it was explained to me from someone who has a physical reaction [to smoke], all it takes is a gust of wind,” Gordon said.
Gordon and Morrison worked together with the AS Board and the Resident Hall Advisory Council to begin discussing a ban. There, they met some pushback from Western students.
The decision to ban cigarettes and vapes altogether was fraught with opinion on both sides from Western students. Smokers and non-smokers alike hold strong views on whether the decision to completely ban tobacco is fair and supports the most students.
“I would like to see campus be completely smoke-free, but I also don’t want to alienate smokers,” Morrison said.
Dee Mooney, AS Disability Outreach Center coordinator, declined to comment on the accessibility implications of the initiative without more information.
Both senior Vanessa Moreno and junior Sarah Watson smoke, and both insisted that banning smoking altogether would not be incentive for students to quit.
“School’s pretty stressful and as a smoker- I mean, yeah, I should quit, but also I need [to smoke] to get through finals,” Watson said.
Moreno agreed.
“If you’re 18, a rule won’t stop you from doing something,” Moreno said.
Gordon acknowledged that it would be difficult to enforce a ban.
“I can’t force someone to not smoke on campus- even if there is a policy, they can still break it,” she said.
Moreno also worried about enforcing a ban. If University Police were in charge of enforcement, she felt that there was potential they could receive incentives for handing out fines.
According to Gordon, the University Police could enforce a ban only if President Randhawa and the rest of the board supported the initiative.
However, Gordon stressed that the initiative is still in its early phase.
Gordon also acknowledged that addiction to cigarettes isn’t a problem that can be solved by a ban on tobacco products, and certainly not overnight.
In order to save money, Watson frequently chain-smokes instead of buying food on campus that is too expensive for her, she said.
According to a study performed by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, more than a quarter of people below the poverty line smoke cigarettes, whereas that number is in the low teens for middle-class people.
Many of those low-income individuals were identified as “food insecure,” meaning they could not afford basic meals on a regular basis.
“If they’re trying to [ban smoking], maybe they should also make food cost less. A lot of people smoke to curb their appetite,” she said.
Gordon struggled with being equitable to everyone when she decided to look into implementing the ban.
“So far we’ve been looking at it as an accessibility issue. I certainly have been wrestling with the stance we take on nicotine and acknowledging that it isn’t easy to wake up and quit,” she said.
Moreno raised concerns about where students could go to smoke.
“If you straight-up ban [cigarettes] from campus, everyone’s just going to go to the arb, where they go to do all the other drugs,” she said.
The Sehome Arboretum is not governed by the same rules as most of Western’s campus, which means a ban would not necessarily be enforced- but there would also be nowhere to throw away butts.
“I would rather smoke on campus, and I’m sorry to whoever it affects, but there should not be tobacco butts in the trees and bushes and the earth. At least here, we have poles to put our butts in,” Watson said.
Where students would be smoking was a big concern when Gordon and Morrison spoke with the RHA. Gordon said RAs were worried about the safety of residents leaving campus at night alone to smoke.
It is not decided whether campus would be 100 percent smoke free or if smoking poles will be moved to less trafficked areas.
Morrison noted that although he would prefer campus be entirely smoke free, he understands that that may not be the most equitable solution.
“I think if we were more thoughtful about placing designated areas, it could be enough,“ he said. “It keeps smokers happy as well as creating a healthier environment for those of us who don’t smoke.”
Gordon spoke of a policy enacted at the University of Oregon over a two-year period. She told me that they reduced the amount of spaces to use cigarettes over time, eventually ending up with none.
Watson believes moving smoking poles farther away from highly concentrated areas is a good compromise, unless the school is willing to implement a structure referred to as a “smoking box.”
Smoking boxes, an enclosed structure that blocks the wind from carrying smoke, have been implemented on other college campuses that limit smoking.
Watson and Moreno both found the boxes to be an equitable solution to keep smoke away from those sensitive to it, even though they both felt the amount of second-hand smoke would be “gross.”
Moreno, Watson, and Morrison all agreed that a new survey should be conducted to ask current students how they feel about a smoking ban. All three thought that using data from a four-year-old survey wasn’t representative of the opinions of the current student body.
“Are they addressing students now? Are students even a part of the conversation?” Watson wondered.
Gordon also doesn’t believe the old survey data is enough to justify implementation. She is looking for more students to voice their agreement- or disagreement- for the idea.
“It’s going to be impossible to implement something that isn’t backed by student support,” she said.
Morrison feels similarly.
“There’s definitely ways to please everyone, so that’s my goal. I want to hear out what other students think and try and take everyone’s opinion into account,” Morrison said.
Right now, Gordon is in talks with the rest of the AS Board to think of ways to implement a smoking ban or partial ban. She says that they won’t continue without first getting feedback from students- it’s just difficult to find out how the students really feel.
If you want to share your opinion on making Western’s campus smoke free, Annie Gordon is awaiting your email at asvp.studentlife@wwu.edu