It’s hard to leave a building on campus without walking into a cloud of cigarette smoke. Whether members of the Loyola community choose to smoke or not, there seems to be almost no way to avoid inhaling tobacco smoke.
“If you want to smoke you are free to do so, as long as it doesn’t harm someone else. It is very difficult to smoke on campus given the number of community members we have, and our proximity to one another,” Vice President of Student Affairs Cissy Petty said in an email.
The consequences of smoking, however, go beyond the boundaries of Smoker’s Alley.
According to several surgeon general reports, there is no safe level of second-hand smoke, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as a “known human carcinogen,” or cancer-causing substance. This involuntary smoking can cause diseases such as lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers. Also according to the EPA, the simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same air space may reduce but does not eliminate the exposure of nonsmokers to environmental tobacco smoke.
Criminal justice senior Yulia Gomez-Nieto, who has suffered from asthma since childhood, said that the constant smoking around campus affects her health on a near-daily basis.
“When I lived on campus I had to do daily therapies to calm my asthma because of the smoke around campus,” she said. “The smoke always makes me feel weak, disgusted and out of place. My nose gets irritated and in some instances it even starts to bleed,” she said, adding that her health got better as soon as she moved off campus.
According to smoker and English writing sophomore Gabrielle Gatto, the prevalence of smokers on campus hasn’t gone unnoticed by visitors, either. “I have some friends at Tulane who walk over here to smoke because they feel like it’s easier to get away with here than it is on their campus,” she said.
English writing sophomore Andrew Ketcham, who serves as a student ambassador, has noticed that the prevalence of smokers affects potential students and the public’s perception of Loyola in general.
While giving a campus tour last semester, Ketcham was leading a group of families past the benches in front of Biever to the University Sports Complex, where four to five students were smoking. “As I walked through, one of the students blew smoke into the tour group, which included some very young children. The families were upset and it was a hard situation to navigate. All I could think is that now these families assume that every student at Loyola is rude and that this kind of behavior is tolerated,” Ketcham said.
According to Petty, the smoking issue is pressing at Loyola because many students aren’t fully aware of which areas of campus are designated. The majority of the problem, however, comes from a lack of clear enforcement of the policy.
“Folks who smoke are supposed to be a certain distance from each building, including outside the residence halls. It is a policy, however, that is very difficult to enforce. Enforcement is based on being respectful of others,” Petty said.
But enforcement of these policies is not the Loyola University Police Department’s job, either.
“There are separate policies that govern smoking in buildings and residence halls, which are covered in Human Resource policies and residence hall policies,” said LUPD Captain Roger Pinac. The LUPD, however, is not “tasked with enforcing” these policies, he said.
Though the lack of a clear method of enforcement appears to have caused this issue, many smokers find that the city of New Orleans itself is more conducive to their smoking habits than others.
“I think I’d stand a better chance of not smoking if I wasn’t from the New Orleans area. It’s not as frowned upon here as it is in other places, at least in my opinion,” psychology and classical studies senior Jason Clay said, who admits to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Like Clay, Gatto views the situation in a similar manner.
“Once I came to Loyola I smoked a lot more because there were more people that did it. In my hometown the only people who smoke are over 50 or really sleazy. But it’s so cultural in New Orleans,” Gatto said.
Whether the smoking issue is a Loyola problem or a New Orleans problem, the amount of smokers on campus hasn’t gone unnoticed by Petty and other university administrators. In fact, she said, the university is looking into transitioning Loyola into becoming a smoke-free campus.
“According to USA Today, more than half of all colleges and universities are considering smoke free campuses, and close to 835 have already instituted smoke free campuses,” Petty said. “Several Jesuit institutions – University of San Francisco, St. Louis University, John Carroll and Georgetown Medical Center – have all enacted Smoke Free Campus policies. Many others have policies similar to ours regarding designated spaces and distance from building requirements.”
If the university were to transition to a smoke-free campus, Petty said it would become LUPD’s duty to enforce the policy.
“What would really be great is if our mission to care for the whole person included being respectful of others, and smokers would abide by the smoking policy,” Petty said.
Mass communication junior Jasmine Barnes agrees that smoking doesn’t only pertain to smokers themselves but that it also affects others in the community.
“If you smoke, that affects mainly you. But if you smoke and litter our campus with your cigarette butts, that affects us all – the current students who see it every day and the prospective students who may see our campus once and then make a very important decision,” Barnes said.
Though some non-smoking students are in favor of a smoke-free campus or tighter regulations, many smokers are wary of such restrictions.
“I would be upset, but not overly surprised,” Clay said. “I think if Loyola becomes a smoke-free campus, nothing’s really going to change. I doubt anyone would just say, ‘Oh, well, I’m quitting because I can’t smoke where I want to.’ They’ll just walk to Audubon or Freret or somewhere else. Just because people aren’t supposed to do something doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Minors aren’t supposed to have alcohol in their rooms, but they do anyway.”
Gatto worries that if Loyola were to become smoke-free, smokers would be looked down upon.
“I would definitely be pro fewer smoking areas or smaller areas, but I feel like having a smoke-free campus would bring more judgment down on people who do smoke. I think I would feel like ashamed if I had to sneak away off campus to go smoke, and I wouldn’t want to feel ashamed of my position at my university that I’m so happy and proud to be a part of,” Gatto said.
“I can’t even count how many times I have seen a professor smoke or bummed them a cigarette, or smoked with a Sodexo employee and asked them how their day was. I wouldn’t want a Sodexo worker to have to feel ashamed about smoking, either,” she said.
Gatto
is also concerned about what would happen to smokers who decided to quit if Loyola became a smoke-free campus, but would like to see programs to help people quit.
“I think it would be cool to see some sort of large-scale, visible program or event for students who want to quit or are thinking about quitting,” Gatto said.
According to Petty, the University Counseling Center currently offers and will continue to offer smoking cessation programs regardless of any changes in smoking policy.
Until policies are changed or enforced more heavily, however, smokers and non-smokers will simply have to co-exist peacefully.
“Right now our biggest designated smoking area is located smack dab in the middle of our campus, which is a problem,” Ketcham said. “Smokers have the right to choose to smoke, but non-smokers also have the right to clean air. And while many of the smokers on campus are respectful, there are a select few who have forgotten that smoking on campus is a privilege, not a right.”
Reports from St. Louis University, a fellow Jesuit institution, reveal that more than 70 percent of college students do not smoke. This means that less than a third of all students at universities like Loyola are exposing their non-smoker friends and peers to the health consequences that these smokers voluntarily expose themselves to.
St. Louis University is one of a handful of Jesuit universities in the U.S. that has adopted a smoke-free campus. During the 2007-2008 academic year, SLU began the process of becoming smoke free after facing problems similar to Loyola’s. According to university reports, representatives from “Smoke Free SLU” attempted to rearrange designated smoking areas, but their policies, like Loyola’s, were neither followed nor enforced.
Now that the smoke-free policy at St. Louis University has been in full effect for nearly five years, the University has seen much more success with enforcement. SLU has also adopted several resources on campus for smokers attempting to quit the habit since the enforcement of the policy.
Before Loyola can be successful with such a policy, students such as Gomez-Nieto and Ketcham believe that a change of attitude toward smoking in general at Loyola must take place. To do so, however, Ketcham believes that logistical changes to the smoking policy must be made first.
“We need to re-evaluate our designated smoking areas and make sure that they aren’t in high-traffic areas. We also need to re-establish, advertise and enforce a coherent smoking policy so that everyone on campus is aware of the rules,” Ketcham said.
(WADNER PIERRE/THE MAROON)
