The small green signs that read “Smoking Area” around campus may not be long for Fresno State””or any other California State University.
Chancellor Timothy P. White and the CSU’s Academic Senate have proposed that by the end of the year all the system’s campuses should be smoke free. On Aug. 1, Cal State Fullerton was the first CSU campus to ban smoking throughout the entire campus.
In a resolution put forth by the Academic Senate in March of last year, officials argued that the CSU should not be promoting the use of tobacco products by students, faculty, and staff.
The Academic Senate also argued that the decision would be in line with previous decisions made by the chancellor’s office. In 1993, Executive Order 599 prohibited smoking in all CSU buildings and leased space. In 2005, Executive Order 966 prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages at any athletic event held in university owned or operated facilities and limited alcohol advertising to beer and wine.
During a Sept. 27 teleconference with student media, White said he doesn’t want to antagonize staff, faculty and students who smoke, but he wants an educational process to help people break the habit.
“The idea isn’t to force them off campus and take a couple puffs and come back to work,” White said. “The evidence is smoking is no longer an individual sport. The exhale is harmful to others and that’s the basis by which we can say a person’s personal right to make choices is overridden by a health concern.”
Neil O’Brien, Associated Students, Inc. senator for health and human services, said when he ran for election he would oppose any ban on smoking.
“They can pick a minority of people that they say have a bad habit,” O’Brien said. “If they want to improve health they should focus on obesity. There’s a small group of people on campus who smoke. They should address the fact we have a Taco Bell on campus. They should focus on dining on campus. This has little to do with health. This is government feeling they can tell you how to live.”
White said in the teleconference he hopes students don’t switch to chewing tobacco just to get a nicotine fix. The goal, he said, is to get people to quit using tobacco all together.
O’Brien said the dangers of smoking are well known. He also said that people know the risks of eating unhealthy food every day on campus, but it’s a personal choice.
“There’s so few people who smoke [on campus],” O’Brien said. “They are choosing the wrong fight to fight. There are a million problems on any campus to address. This is nothing.”
O’Brien said the current system, with designated smoking areas, works. People who don’t want to be affected by second-hand smoke can avoid those areas.
No final decision has been made, but White said a panel has been put together to determine the feasibility of the idea.
“There is a group working on this and thinking it through,” White said. “There is a cost associated with it as well. We have to figure out how to fund it. A lot of America is moving toward smoke-free environments. We should be one of them.”
Kate • Oct 30, 2013 at 3:04 am
The current set-up of smoke areas doesn’t work. I attend CSULB and I have to hide inside the buildings because smokers literally smoke anywhere they please. I am very allergic to the smoke. My eyes itch and burn, my throat tightens, and I’ve even had a bit of hearing problems related to cigarette smoke. Saying things like obesity matters more is ridiculous. A person standing next to me that suffers from obesity isn’t causing me any harm, but a person next to me that’s smoking is causing irreparable harm to my body and daily functions. I will gladly find a way to post some of the pictures I’ve taken of fellow students smoking directly next to signs that clearly state no smoking within 20 feet of this building. It’s a problem that needs to be fixed. I’m not a big fan of Obama, but I do think that this is a step in the right direction.
Kevin Fxr • Oct 26, 2013 at 10:04 am
Smokers are being described by the medical community today, as though a separate race or species, from non smokers. Every charge, law and restriction that is applicable to scientific racism is inherent and now necessary to enforce once again, As evidenced in their international hate campaigns and misanthropy today. Once again those with different health risks, it is said by the so called “Public Health Authorities”, or people with objectionable lifestyle choices, should be judged according to the same illegitimate bell curve statistics, once used to condemn other races, The statistical observations stand alone, as all that provides the entirety of their scientific rigor, as an excuse, for their excessive indignities targeting others with hatred..
Denormalization is not the workings of humane or ethical conduct, rather the work of miscreants and abusers.
Hatred as the primary underlying bias, is inherent as the only legitimate observation, and the entire medical community, the medical charities, along with any politician who supports that fashioned hatred, should be well known to the entire community, for their true nature and low life crimes against humanity.
This article stands as a promotion [in sanity] of a criminal act, isn’t it time to call for prosecutions? We have all paid enough.
candy • Oct 24, 2013 at 2:22 pm
I am so glad to know that there is initiative to ban smoking from CSU campuses.
harleyrider1978 • Oct 23, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Colleges being forced to go smokefree by Obama Administration
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an initiative to ban smoking from college campuses last month. This is part of the HHS goal to create a society free of tobacco-related disease and death, according to their action plan released by the HHS in 2010.
Colleges who fail to enact campus-wide smoking bans and other tobacco-free policies may soon face the loss of grants and contracts from the HHS, according to the plan. Western receives grants through a subdivision of the HHS called the National Institutes of Health, Acting Vice Provost for Research Kathleen Kitto said.
http://www.westernfrontonline.net/news/article_f8068f12-0efe-11e2-8b41-001a4bcf6878.html?success=1
Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/11/obama … z29zJ2V2TV
President Barack Obama has already promised not to smoke cigarettes in the White House. If his administration has its way, American college students will soon be required to follow suit while they’re on campus.
Howard Koh, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will announce a national initiative Wednesday at the University of Michigan School of Public Health to stamp out tobacco use on college campuses.