Despite having an unofficial smoking spot in front of a busy Middleton Library, student smokers spoke out at the Jan. 28 Student Government Senate meeting to ask for a designated space to light up, away from an area with foot traffic.
Computer engineering freshman Gabe Scioneaux addressed SG and called the tobacco-free policy discriminatory and unjust.
Fall 2014 students entered a tobacco-free University, but student smokers found themselves with no place to light up and an unenforceable policy. 
“And when it gets down to it, the Tobacco-Free Policy, without being a progressive policy, without giving any type of smoking area on campus, even if it’s just for a little while to help people kind of decide if they’re ready to quit or not or give them another option or other schools to go to, it’s not just,” Scioneaux said.
In 2013, the Louisiana legislature passed a law requiring all public college campuses to have a tobacco-free or smoke-free policy by Aug. 1, 2014. The University’s policy uses peer enforcement rather than ticketing to discourage tobacco use.
However, the use of tobacco on campus could earn students more than a
finger-wagging.
“If a student is violating a policy, it could be seen as a violation of the code of conduct,” said Student Government adviser Michael Smith.
For repeated violations of the policy, University officials can “impose appropriate disciplinary sanctions for repeated refusal to comply with university policy,” according to the Tobacco-Free Campus Policy.
Smoking advocates came up with the idea of a designated smoking area after speaking with dean of students K.C. White in response to complaints about smoking in front of Middleton.
History junior Brooke Procell said the college she attended before coming to the University had designated smoking shelters with paths on either side — a plan she said would work at the University to separate smokers from those who do not want to be around them.
“There were two paths you could take — you could either walk past the smokers or not walk past them,” Procell said.
Although a designated smoking area does not comply with the policy in place now, White advised student smokers to go to the SG. 
“While the University expects everyone to comply with the Tobacco-Free Policy, and I support the policy, working with SG may be a way for continued dialogue,” White said. 
SG senators met with smoking advocates after the meeting to point them in the direction of  faculty senators and state legislators who might be able to change the policy.