Choose Your Own Smoking Ghetto
Lewis and Clark would like you to fill out a survey on where our designated smoking areas will be placed. Excluding the spot between Odell and the Apartments, they want to fling smokers as far as possible from the centers of campus life. I left this in the comments section:
I think smokers are smelly and gross, but that worries me less than
this nanny-state parentalism. I would rather smell tobacco here and
there than see our already decentralized social spaces become even
more desolate. As a school without a real quad, and lacking a central
gathering point for large numbers of students to meet, talk, and
relax, the last thing our social dynamics need is to exclude a group
of students from the few places people still do get together.I’ll laugh at my smoker peers when they’re dying of lung cancer at 70.
In the meantime, I enjoy their company and conversation, so please
don’t banish smokers to the far corners of campus for the sake of
spearheading the anti-tobacco movement. If you guys are dead-set on
this silly plan to establish smoking ghettoes, place them wisely, and do your best not to destroy the social fabric of our school any more than it has been already. While they may be stupid hipsters bent on lowering their life expectancy for the sake of their rebel image, smokers are people too.Sincerely,
David Shackelford
Non-smoking believer in individual rights.
What do you think about the smoking areas? Do you feel like you were part of the process behind the policy? This PioLog editorial argues that we simply haven’t been paying attention, but I feel like I keep myself pretty informed about things at LC, and this flew under my radar. Whatever you think, take the survey and let the school know how you feel.
Edit: It sounds like there was a good amount of discussion and publicity about this last year, while I was abroad in Japan. I withhold judgment on the process to this point, though I still think the outcome is dumb.
[Administrator]
Cary
kennner
dshack
maishaparadox
angelalc
Thank you posting a link to that survey, Shack. How come it hasn’t been more widely distributed? Who sponsored it/where did you find it?
http://www.lclark.edu/source/
I am certainly against the smoking regulations (I think the 25-feet rule is sufficient–our problem is enforcement, not regulations). That being said, I feel it was pretty well-publicized last year that these conversations were happening. It’s true that most of the decisions were made in the late end of the school year or over the Summer, but it was pretty well-publicized that there were forums and surveys to discuss the effectiveness of the current policy and to explore new options.
In short, I disagree with the changes (for many reasons, but most can be distilled to some sort of libertarian motivation), but I definitely don’t feel out of the loop.
Also somewhat relevant, Time posted a piece today about on-campus smoking bans:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1945356,00.html
Oh, I thought they were implying that it was publicized this semester. I was away last year, which explains the disconnect.
Another thing that worries me is that the “President’s Task Force on Substance Use and Abuse Report to the Executive Council” recommends a ban of all tobacco products.
I can’t find the document online anywhere, but I’ll scan it and post it for you all. Celestino was kind enough to print a copy for me when I met with him to discuss the smoking policy changes.
bummer – left this on the wrong thread…..take 2
I wonder if there are any smokers on the committee. Interesting locations they have proposed – we’ve gone from “25 feet away from buildings” to “go to the edges of campus now so no one can see you do that really bad thing it is that you do”
More importantly, they should be addressing the current policy and the lack of enforcement, what happens when I decide to have a smoke on the way to my car? Do I pay a fine?
I seriously doubt there would be any fines. Representatives of the college have said on numerous occasions that fines are not an equitable sanction. I imagine you’d probably get a warning or two, then start having to meet with Melissa Osmond, and then get into more serious consequences… based on how the current alcohol/marijuana/smoking policy stuff is usually handled.
But I think the issue of enforcement will be just as problematic under the new regulations as it is currently. I really don’t think we’re going to police ourselves (there will certainly be some, but I doubt many students will care enough to confront a smoker about moving), and I don’t think Campus Safety can/should exert the effort necessary to police this effectively.
——————
Current System
——————
The status quo is failing everyone.
Non-smokers can not be assured not having to deal with smoke as they go about their business (e.g. there are many pathways on campus that are 25′ from a building, but offer one little alternative should there be smoking afoot on them).
Smokers have to choose between smoking in the rain or furtively breaking policy to smoke near a building.
No one knows in a useable way what exactly is 25′ from a building.
——————-
Smoking Areas
——————-
Leaving aside for the moment the exact number or location of these areas, they are a much better solution than what we struggle with at present.
No what-is-25′ guesswork.
Smoking Areas are positionable such that non-smokers can get to/from buildings, etc. without walking through smoke.
Smokers get protection from the elements.
…everyone gets to go about their lives as they choose with a minimum of impact on other people’s abilities to do the same — win.
There is a reason that LC smokers have been asking for a smoker’s gazebo for the last 7 years — it is a plan that benefits everyone.
—————————
Enforcement
—————————
Enforcement definitely needs to get sorted out.
That currently RAs are the only people that consistently enforce the smoking policy bring dishonor upon us (by which I mean, it is awesome that the RAs are doing dealing with smoking near the Res Halls – it is not awesome that other people are not doing it anywhere else).
Better enforcement, however, will not fix the current system – for two reasons:
(1) The current system fails even with 100% enforcement: because the 25’ rule does not allow non-smokers to reasonably go about their lives at LC free of smoke.
(2) The current system is ultimately unenforceable: we cannot ensure that no one is smoking within 25’ of a building without posting either 25’ markers around all buildings or posting its-ok-to-smoke-here signs away from buildings… …in either case, what we have ended up doing is creating Smoking Areas – all else is merely debate over size and location.
The LC community does, however, need to come up with a way to enforce the Smoking Area policy – and a way that is applicable to all community members at that. Our current judicial system is build to address student issues, and does not necessarily scale well to faculty, staff, alumni, guests, etc.
This is, in my eyes, the issue that will be key to the success or failure of this (or any) smoking policy.
———————————
Numbers and Location
———————————
It would have been interesting if – instead of presenting us with a pre-selected set of choices – the survey had allowed one to drag-and-drop X number of Smoking Area tokens (perhaps with Y number of definitely-not-here tokens) around the map.
Discussion as to location, number, and what the Smoking Areas look like should certainly continue – but that does not mean the current system should be preserved.