Editorial: Outdoor smoking bans aren’t necessary at colleges

Protesting has been a college-student pastime since before some of our parents were protesting the Vietnam War. And in mid-November, students and faculty at George Washington University continued the tradition when they protested the announcement of an on-campus smoking ban by chain smoking for hours in a campus plaza.

At GWU, the ban, which will take effect next school year, will disallow smoking on all university-owned property and within 25 feet of any college building. Students at this college are presumably mourning the end of their finals-stress-induced smoke breaks outside the library.

The outdoors smoking ban at GWU is in line with several other similar bans at college campuses and even in entire cities across the country. According to American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, which published an extensive list of colleges that have enacted smoking bans, more than 800 colleges have banned smoking across their entire campuses, including several large, public colleges such as Miami University of Ohio, University of Florida and University of Michigan.

Even the city of Raleigh, N.C., a city with a history of an important tobacco industry, banned smoking on all city streets and sidewalks, as well as at bus stops and in parks. Most colleges and cities that have banned smoking outdoors level fines at those who still light up, but enforcement varies in its consistency.

Although the goal of protecting people from secondary smoke exposure is paramount, banning smoking outdoors seems unnecessarily restrictive.

Smoking on college campuses is much less of a problem than it once was: According to an article in the Washington Post, in 2011, only 15 percent of college students nationwide smoked, down from 31 percent in 1999. Smoking is no longer the norm among college students, so campus patios and sidewalks are relatively smoke-free. Especially at large, urban universities such as Pitt or George Washington, there is usually enough space for people to pass a smoker on the sidewalk or avoid secondhand smoke in a college-owned plaza.

Also, administrators at GWU have to acknowledge the issue of enforcing this ban. Who’s really going to measure 25 feet away from a campus building? Can any campus’s security really enforce the ban?

However, smoking does present a serious health risk, and experts say that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Also, smoking is not just a concern for students — faculty and staff are also likely to be affected by secondhand smoke or smoking addiction. Instead of banning smoking entirely, perhaps universities could focus their efforts more heavily on helping people quit. For example, Pitt offers a free, six-week smoking cessation support program for students who want to quit smoking. Programs like this one could help further cut down on smoking on college campuses without instituting a difficult-to-enforce ban.

Hopefully, increasing education and support services instead of enacting a blanket ban will decrease smoking rates on campuses.