Health class is usually taught accompanied by physical education during middle or high school, when you learn to wait for sex, drink responsibly and avoid smoking.
For a community that understands the effects of smoking, throwing repetitive information in our faces gets annoying fast. I don’t smoke, but after watching commercials and listening to speakers waste my class time over and over again on the subject, I may just give it a try.
I acknowledge that regulation of smoking locations is lacking on campus, but I also know that, in this country, when enough people want something gone or changed, it should only take two snaps.
When it comes to smoking on campus, students are aware of the repercussions but still don’t feel strongly enough to support banning the indulgence completely.
“As long as they’re outside, it doesn’t bother me,” said Lindsay Rivet, accounting sophomore.
Jenn Winston, early childhood development freshman, shares similar views, saying that smoking doesn’t seem common enough to make it an issue.
Organizations like SmokingWords, a smoking awareness campaign that started in 2000 at LSU, have continued to push for a tobacco-free environment.
In 12 years’ time, SmokingWords has developed an awareness website and an advocacy group that attends fundraising and awareness events such as the American Cancer Society Relays for Life and the Great American Smokeout.
Why bother to keep pushing for something not many students feel strongly about?
The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living provided LSU with the financial means to work toward a clean environment and eventually become a member of Fresh Campus, a statewide organization in the process of making colleges and universities across Louisiana smoke-free.
Smoking is prohibited in any University building, providing professors, faculty and staff with a smoke-free environment. Smoking is permitted 25 feet away from the entrance of any building, and with the exception of the front of Middleton Library, the rule seems to serve its purpose.
Seeing that smoking is not illegal everywhere, banning it across campuses is only solving half the issue. By having our campus tobacco-free, only secondary effects of smoking are being eliminated — smokers aren’t going to quit merely because they can’t do it in a certain area.
After speaking to students around campus, I found that most are indifferent to the issue. Smoking is a decision that we are allowed to make, and taking away an opportunity to relieve stress will only piss us off more than being forced to walk off campus if the rule is actually enforced.
Joshua Seitz, computer science senior, agrees.
“It’s good to educate, but that doesn’t change the fact that smoking is a choice people will make either way,” Seitz said.
 
I’m with him.
Being told not to do something doesn’t imply that we’ll listen — just ask any members on the staff of LSU’s Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation.
Littering is also prohibited, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find trash in hallways, classrooms or parking lots — which nullifies the argument about smokers having no respect for the beauty of the campus, because apparently a large number of non-smokers don’t either.
According to Judith Sylvester, mass communication professor and founder of SmokingWords, LSU has a 27 percent smoking rate among undergraduates and a nearly 12 percent rate among graduate students and staff members. Six percent of the faculty smoke.
Looking at the numbers, barely a quarter of LSU’s community partakes in the legal issue which is apparently causing so much grief.
“It’s not an issue, you know the areas and can avoid them,” said Megan Simon, psychology junior.
A vocal majority has yet to speak up while LSU is set on becoming a smoke-free campus in the fall of this year. We can only hope that when LSU enforces the new rules, less of our class time will be wasted telling us why we should follow them.
Marie-Therese Yokum is a 19-year-old mass communication and finance sophomore from Lafayette. Follow her on Twitter @mtyokum_TDR.
 
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Contact Marie-Therese Yokum at [email protected]