In the past few decades, smoking, which was once a common habit, has been pushed to the fringes of society.
In 1975, Minnesota became the first state to ban smoking indoors. The rest of the country began to follow.
Within the next 20 years, most states adopted some sort of smoking ban — some required smoking sections in restaurants, other required all-out bans in public places.
Louisiana has banned smoking from restaurants in past years, but has yet to ban it in bars and casinos.
So far, Nicholls State has been the only university to enact a ban in Louisiana, and Southern University will outlaw tobacco starting in January, according to The Advocate.
Our University has never seen any all-out bans. But last year, the Faculty Senate and Student Government passed a resolution to keep smokers 25 feet away from entrances to buildings.
Though passed, the resolution didn’t appear to do much — just see how many smokers you can count in front of Middleton Library.
But next fall, the rules are going to be a little more extreme. Some will find this news comforting. Others will likely be enraged.
The University will be completely tobacco free in the fall of 2012, according to Judith Sylvester, mass communication professor and chair of the Faculty Senate’s Tobacco-Free Campus Committee.
That’s right — both Student Government and Faculty Senate have passed resolutions to make the University a tobacco-free campus next fall.
The ban will include not only cigarettes, but smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes and other types of nicotine substances, Sylvester said.
All tobacco products will be included by the ban in an effort to slow tobacco use among students.
Sylvester said she does not expect a 100-percent success rate the first year the ban is implemented.
“Hopefully, 10 years down the line, realistically we could be smoke free,” Sylvester said.
To accomplish this tobacco-free goal, Sylvester said she wants to “change the campus culture” so the effort to prevent smoking will be voluntary, not forced.
She wants to implement a social marketing campaign to help change opinions on smoking over time.
According to the committee report, 27 percent of undergraduate students smoke, so the ban is likely to affect many students, but the way the ban would be implemented seems questionable.
I spoke to about 30 smoking students in the Quad on Tuesday. Most of them seemed shocked that smoking would be totally banned, and nearly all of them said they would still smoke on campus unless there was a strict penalty, similar to the way the University of Arkansas treats offenders.
While a penalty may seem like a good way to get students to stop, Sylvester said her “goal has never been to make it punitive.”
She said she would like to implement a system like the University of Kentucky has where students simply inform their peers who are smoking to move off campus in the future.
If there really needed to be a penalty to enforce the ban, Sylvester suggested students would have to clean cigarette butts off the ground — just look down wherever you’re walking.
Also, Sylvester said banning smoking on game days will mostly be a challenge, as tailgaters would have to dispose of butts correctly instead of littering. She said the Athletic Department will have to help.
Most people I talked to said no one would walk all the way off campus from the Quad to smoke, instead suggesting designated smoking areas.
The committee is not in favor of smoking areas because they can cost up to $5,000 each and need constant maintenance.
But most of all, the students did not think the ban was realistic.
While it may seem like a huge undertaking to successfully ban tobacco on campus, Sylvester said she thinks it can happen.
“The Quad is the No. 1 target for getting it out,” Sylvester said.
Personally, I don’t think a holistic ban in one year is realistic. I suggest the committee creates smoking areas and eliminates one each semester for a few years until current students graduate and freshmen enter aware that the campus is becoming tobacco free.
While this new rule may aggravate some students, there’s really nothing to do about it other than accept it.
It is true that there is tons of litter thanks to smokers on campus, and you certainly can’t walk through the Quad without smelling smoke.
Of course people will think they can protest and overcome the ban, but that probably isn’t what’s going to happen. So let’s just go with it. The University will certainly be a healthier and nicer place without tobacco.
 
Chris Grillot is a 20-year-old English and mass communication junior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_cgrillot.