Submission: UC smoking ban restricts individual choice

UC President Mark Yudof asserts that “offering a smoke-free environment (on UC campuses) will contribute positively to the health and well-being of all UC students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors.”

The UC-wide campus smoking ban, which will go into effect April 22, will prohibit the use of all tobacco products on all UCLA property. According to an educational flier regarding the ban, neighboring areas immediately off-campus may be affected by increased smoker presence, piling on to requests currently being made for people to “not congregate or litter on their property.”

If people can’t smoke on campus and shouldn’t smoke off campus, their choices become quite limited. They can break these new rules by smoking on campus, they can walk 10 minutes off-campus to a non-restricted area and 10 minutes back, or they will be forced to go through the hazards of quitting smoking – in the middle of a stressful quarter, no less.

Problems that exist with the current system include poor signage of smoking areas and low enforcement of smoking restrictions.

Since elementary school, students have been educated about why smoking is unhealthy. Such education has clearly not deterred smokers up to this point. If the intention of the ban is to reduce smoke on campus, informing students about the proper areas to smoke on campus as opposed to why smoking is bad may hold more success in reducing smoke in smoke-free areas.

Instead of marking non-smoking areas, it would be better to indicate clearly where smoking is allowed.

Smokers can go there and non-smokers can easily avoid it.

With cigarette smoking comes a culture of interaction. It is an opportunity for smokers to step outside and engage in conversations with other smokers. Smoking is also a chance to step away from the books for 10 minutes and just relax.

It’s easy to believe that the ban is to restrict the effects of secondhand smoke on students, but by banning smokeless tobacco products and electronic cigarettes, it is clear that the health of non-smoking students is not the primary concern. Electronic cigarettes, for example, are smokeless, smell-less, and only produce a comparatively non-harmful vapor which has little effect on non-smokers.

While the university is providing a free hotline, more steps may need to be taken to provide support for those who may want to quit. Different methods for quitting, which can range from over-the-counter meds to counseling programs, can often exceed the cost of smoking, according to an article from Bloomberg Magazine. Regardless of what method of quitting is used, should students choose to quit smoking because of this ban, they would be pitted against the financial costs of quitting.

At a campus where grades are increasingly competitive, all-nighters are common occurrences and anxiety about success is high, it is unreasonable to use a smoking ban to coerce students into quitting. The new policy implies that it is acceptable to shame people for smoking through embarrassment and fines.

But we must keep in mind that smoking is a completely legal practice and can provide relief from these worries for a 10-minute period of time for some students. Quitting should be a personal choice that comes at a time when the individual is fully ready. Getting rid of an addiction is not a casual practice; you have to genuinely want it.

The new policy minimizes individuals’ choices and assumes that even through years of education regarding smoking, they just weren’t informed enough to listen, and maybe they’ll wise up now that the UC system has banned it on campus.

Alternatives to the campus-wide smoking ban could include banning smoking in high traffic areas. For example, instead of using Janss Steps and outside of Powell Library as a smoking area, UCLA could restrict smoking to another area nearby that is less impacted by pedestrian traffic. Smoking while walking on Bruin Walk, or other areas of campus, could be banned.

Placing smoking areas in remote locations would reduce unwilling passersby’s exposure to smoke. But writing off smokers entirely alienates a portion of the student body, which goes against the ideals of community and acceptance that this campus strives to uphold.

These students, faculty, staff, patients and visitors are able to make their own decisions about life. If Disneyland can allow smoking, so can the University of California.

Cook is a fourth-year anthropology student.