UCLA implements new measures to increase compliance with tobacco ban

UCLA officials recently instituted new policies to increase compliance with the campus’ tobacco-free policy, drawing mixed reactions from the UCLA community.

The Tobacco-Free Task Force, the organization created to promote compliance with the tobacco policy, began sending out alerts on Wednesday to deans, supervisors and directors who work in buildings near smoking hotspots, said Linda Sarna, chair of the Tobacco-Free Steering Committee and chair of the UCLA Academic Senate.

The alerts asked employees working in those buildings to approach people who are smoking and give them a policy card and remind them that UCLA is a tobacco-free zone, Sarna said.

The measures come six months after UCLA became the first UC campus to go tobacco-free. Last year, former UC President Mark Yudof called for all 10 UC campuses to implement a smoking ban.

UCLA’s ban first went into effect in April, but members of the task force said they know people continue to smoke on campus.

Task force members said they hope the alerts will be another step to making the UCLA community more aware of the policy. Sarna referenced a study done by the Tobacco-Free Campus Action Research Team, which showed that in five of the seven locations monitored by the research group, there was an overall decrease in the median number of cigarette butts.

The study, conducted by a student research group from the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, analyzed five smoking hotspot locations, such as Powell Library and outside the Physics and Astronomy Building.

The researchers monitored the sites both before and after the ban took place, documenting the average number of cigarette butts found at each location. The group then compared the hotspots with two locations that were already tobacco-free, one of which was the emergency room of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

The study, which Sarna advised, found that the median number of cigarette butts across all the sites decreased from 595.5 to 159.5 cigarette butts.

Sarna said that preliminary advertisements, temporary signs and T-shirt giveaways to inform individuals of the policy have cost $23,000. Permanent signs and advertisements have cost an additional $50,000. Members of the task force, however, are unpaid volunteers. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health also provided free nicotine patches available to students through “quit-kits,” Sarna said.

Elloi Delos Reyes, administrative specialist for the Tobacco-Free Task Force and a former smoker, said the Tobacco-Free Task Force has also begun recruiting for what they will call “Clean Air Advocates.”

The task force will train the Clean Air Advocates on how to approach smokers to remind them that the campus is a tobacco-free area.

“We’re here to help, we’re not here to punish,” said Reyes.

But some students said they have found the smoking policy has not decreased how often they smoke. Ariano Abbasi, fourth-year anthropology student, said he goes to more hidden locations on campus now that the ban is in place.

Abbasi added that going to these more secluded locations make him feel excluded from the UCLA community because he has to hide while smoking.

Many students said the policy makes them feel ashamed or excluded for smoking.

“I shouldn’t feel like I’m doing something illegal. I’m legally allowed to smoke and I should be able to do that on campus,” said Steven Kezian, a third-year neuroscience student who has been smoking since he was 15 years old.

Like Abbasi, Kezian said he still smokes on campus, but now he tries to go to remote locations on campus where people are less likely to see him.

Kezian added that he and his friends feel the policy “demonizes the smoker,” rather than encouraging smokers to quit.

Reyes, however, said a similar tobacco-free environment at the hospital she worked at helped motivate her to quit smoking.

“I used to be able to say ‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ but the policy made it too inconvenient,” Reyes said. She added that having to leave work to smoke was not worth continuing the habit.

But students like Abbasi and Kezian said they want to dictate their own smoking habits.

“People should be able to quit on their own terms,” Abbasi said, “And (the people who instituted the ban) force you to quit or at least reduce your smoking.”