Students returning to LSU this fall will be greeted with bright, shiny new non-smoking signs and the always-helpful University police encouraging them to quit our community’s most common vice. At least that’s how Louisiana legislators are imagining it will go.
But realistically that’s not how things happen on campus. If you light up on Aug. 1 you’ll be tapped on the shoulder by a stern campus police officer who will gesture towards a smoke-free campus sign and hand you a ticket.
Associate professor Judith Sylvester told The Advocate that she considers herself to be realistic as she leads efforts on campus. She hopes to eliminate use of all forms of tobacco, not just those which infringe an individual’s right to clean air. This option was included in the law.
I agree with Sylvester and her supporters: it’s going to do the University some good. It’ll be a great way to convince parents to send their children to a college that allows its students to be harassed by non-university affiliated protesters in Free Speech Plaza.
Sure, your kids will be told they’re going to hell because they’re studying evolution, but look around. Do you see a cigarette butt anywhere? Nope, not one!
Supporters in the LSU community are pushing it as a way to improve campus health, saying that the policy will encourage smokers to quit the addictive habit. But if the average student attends 15 hours of class each week, who’s going to slap the cigarette out of their hand during the other 153 hours of the week? How will they be able to stop unless we put one of those flashy non-smoking signs in each one of their homes?
Sylvester cited a decline in smoking at LSU in the early 2000s leading up to Hurricane Katrina and tuition increases which she claims added stress to the students. This stress led to an increase in smoking.
As someone who is not a regular smoker, but has friends who are, I can see the truth in her statements. LSU students are stressed, and it needs to be addressed.
Instead of taking away a vice that keeps them going in an extreme high-stress setting, why not work to increase staff availability in the Mental Health Service? This could cut down on the wait time that students face when making an appointment to see a psychiatrist, thereby cutting down on the use of cigarettes as a short term solution to stress.
But we don’t actually care about the student’s health enough to come up with a long-term solution. We want our air to smell fresh and our grounds to stay well-manicured so that we can pull in more money for the University.
LSU President F. King Alexander has yet to officially sign off on the tobacco-free policy, and I hope for the sake of the students on this campus that he decides against it. Limit the areas in which smoking is allowed on campus, but don’t force an already stressed student to run to the edge of campus to calm their nerves.
The students of LSU are not children who need to be scolded when they make poor choices. We are adults. We can vote, we can fight for our country and we can smoke cigarettes. If LSU begins to treat us like elementary school students again, they may as well create a uniform policy and have us walk in lines through the hallways.
If it is legal for us to consume tobacco, let us consume tobacco. While it’s reasonable to limit the areas on campus that are affected by the air pollution, banning all forms of tobacco entirely is taking it too far.
Jana King is a 19-year-old communication studies junior from Ponchatoula.