In September I wrote an article about some Austin Hall residents smoking outside the entrance of the building. They unknowingly violated the 25 by 25 rule which states you have to be at least 25 feet away from the doorway of a building on campus property. From what I can see, smoking on campus has been an issue, and will remain to be an issue until we can all agree on a well-publicized rule that everyone will abide by. We should have designated smoke zones on campus to solve the issue.
The University of South Florida put their smoking policy into effect on March 20, 2012. They have 25 smoking designated areas on campus. There isn’t a strict penalty for choosing to ignore their policy, but if a student continuously chooses to disobey the rule then they will be considered in violation of the Student Code of Conduct.
Similar to USF, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton started their designated smoking zones on Jan. 2, 2010. They also didn’t have strict repercussions for violating the policy. However, due to students excessively violating the rule, they decided to expel anyone caught violating the rule.
Breathe Easy, the tobacco free group on campus, posted pictures of possible smoke zones on their Facebook page. The possible smoke free locations seem reasonable. One is located at the back of the library, so that smokers would be able to smoke away from the entrance. Other locations are in somewhat secluded areas to decrease the problem of secondhand smoke.
According to ucanquit2.org, secondhand smoke results in 42,000 deaths per year to nonsmokers in the United States. With designated smoking zones, we can make it possible to lower the number of deaths. We have to be considerate of those around us and the air that they breathe.
If UT decided to enact the same policy as USF and FAU, some students may feel isolated from the campus.
Although I take that into consideration, I still believe that having designated smoking areas are better than having a completely tobacco-free campus. Some would probably ignore the policy, and some would claim to be unaware due to lack of advertising around campus. Whichever route we decide to go down to ensure a healthy and tobacco-free campus, the effectiveness of the strategy isn’t guaranteed. Nevertheless, it is important to at least have some form of a strategy.
Zoe Fowler can be reached at Zoe.Fowler@spartans.ut.edu