Campus-wide smoking ban to be considered
Published: Friday, July 20, 2012
Updated: Saturday, July 21, 2012 17:07
 "Photo: Lantern file photo")
Lantern file photo
The Ohio Board of Regents passed a campus-wide smoking ban July 23.
The days of being able to take a smoke break between classes might be coming to an end at Ohio State. Higher Education officials are planning to vote on a campus-wide smoking ban Monday.
The current university policy bans any smoking indoors and prohibits smoking outdoors within 25 feet of any building entrance or window. The policy is similar to the statewide Ohio regulation passed in 2006, which banned smoking in all enclosed workplaces, including but not limited to bars and restaurants.
Chairman James Tuschman of the Ohio Board of Regents, a governor-appointed board made up of nine people who advise on higher education issues of statewide importance, plans to introduce the smoke-free resolution at their July 23 meeting.
The resolution would not be a binding OSU policy, it would have to be enforced by the university Board of Trustees, who aren’t scheduled to meet again until Aug. 30.
The idea of a smoke-free, or even tobacco-free, campus is not new at OSU.
President E. Gordon Gee told The Lantern in April 2010 that would like to see a smoke-free OSU.
"A smoke-free campus is not at the top of my priority list, but if someone came to me with a proposal and we could make that happen quickly, I would be the first in line," Gee said.
Students have made efforts in the past to push the university towards a stricter tobacco policy. Public health graduate student Danielle Grospitch started a Buckeyes Against Butts campaign and has been an advocate for a tobacco-free campus during her time at OSU.
Grospitch said the university needs to prove their commitment to health and wellness.
"Whether the vote passes on Monday or not, OSU is still capable of enforcing a stronger policy than the one that currently exists," said Grospitch in an email Friday. "Honestly anything would be better than what we have."
Several Ohio universities have passed smoking bans, including Miami University, Malone College, Mount Vernon Nazarene College, and Ohio Christian University, according to findings by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. Miami University is the only public university in Ohio on that list.
According to a July 1 ANRF release, there are currently 774 smoke-free campuses, and 562 of those are tobacco-free campuses, including an additional ban on smokeless-tobacco.
Among Big Ten schools, OSU would be joining Penn State, the University of Michigan, Indiana University, and the University of Iowa if the smoke-free resolution is adopted by the Board of Trustees.
Despite Gee’s vision, the student body has traditionally been divided regarding the implementation of a campus-wide smoking ban.
“For someone addicted to smoking, it would be really hard,” said Mengyu Liu, a fourth-year in biomedical engineering. “There should be a limited area for those people to smoke.”
Others were in favor of the ban.
“I grew up with a parent who smoked, and it disgusts me, even outside,” said Cally McGee, a fourth-year in anthropology.
McGee said she isn’t confident the ban would be enforced.
According to reports from the Associated Press, representatives from the Ohio Board of Regents will meet with officials from the Cleveland Clinic and the state Department of Health to plan a discussion of the proposed resolution before the vote Monday.
21 comments
World-renowned pulmonologist, president of the prestigious Research Institute Necker for the last decade, Professor Philippe Even, now retired, tells us that he's convinced of the absence of harm from passive smoking. A shocking interview.
What do the studies on passive smoking tell us?PHILIPPE EVEN. There are about a hundred studies on the issue. First surprise: 40% of them claim a total absence of harmful effects of passive smoking on health. The remaining 60% estimate that the cancer risk is multiplied by 0.02 for the most optimistic and by 0.15 for the more pessimistic ... compared to a risk multiplied by 10 or 20 for active smoking! It is therefore negligible. Clearly, the harm is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low.It is an indisputable scientific fact. Anti-tobacco associations report 3 000-6 000 deaths per year in France ...I am curious to know their sources. No study has ever produced such a result.Many experts argue that passive smoking is also responsible for cardiovascular disease and other asthma attacks. Not you?They don't base it on any solid scientific evidence. Take the case of cardiovascular diseases: the four main causes are obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. To determine whether passive smoking is an aggravating factor, there should be a study on people who have none of these four symptoms. But this was never done. Regarding chronic bronchitis, although the role of active smoking is undeniable, that of passive smoking is yet to be proven. For asthma, it is indeed a contributing factor ... but not greater than pollen!The purpose of the ban on smoking in public places, however, was to protect non-smokers. It was thus based on nothing?Absolutely nothing! The psychosis began with the publication of a report by the IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer, which depends on the WHO (Editor's note: World Health Organization). The report released in 2002 says it is now proven that passive smoking carries serious health risks, but without showing the evidence. Where are the data? What was the methodology? It's everything but a scientific approach. It was creating fear that is not based on anything.Why would anti-tobacco organizations wave a threat that does not exist?The anti-smoking campaigns and higher cigarette prices having failed, they had to find a new way to lower the number of smokers. By waving the threat of passive smoking, they found a tool that really works: social pressure. In good faith, non-smokers felt in danger and started to stand up against smokers. As a result, passive smoking has become a public health problem, paving the way for the Evin Law and the decree banning smoking in public places. The cause may be good, but I do not think it is good to legislate on a lie. And the worst part is that it does not work: since the entry into force of the decree, cigarette sales are rising again.Why not speak up earlier?As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held by my duty to confidentiality (1). If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man.Le Parisien
Robert E. Madden, M.D.
respected members and organizations of the scientific field . Anti-smokers continue to
stand behind an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study that was struck down as
junk science by a Federal Court judge. That study classified SHS as a Group A
carcinogen but the judge, and later, the Congressional Research Service, found that this
classification was arrived at unscientifically. Of course the EPA reaffirms their
conclusions. With that in mind, it needs to be noted that 20 years ago the Centers for
Disease Control added saccharin to the official list of carcinogens, only to remove it from
the list this year. It seems they were mistaken (oops). Government agencies are not
infallible.
When this anti-smoking pogrom began it was just an educational effort. Next they came up with smoking sections in restaurants, that was not unreasonable. Now they're creating laws and demanding absolute bans on smoking under all circumstances, even in one's own home. If you can't see a big problem with that, my friend, then you just don't "get it" when it comes to being an American.
One cannot embrace totalitarianism in any form while claiming to be a supporter of liberty without making it apparent that what one truly stands for is abject hypocrisy.A few decades ago, we had no extensive gun control laws which affected the law-abiding citizen. We had no smoking bans. We had no seat belt laws. Now that we do, we hear of new restrictions on soft drinks, dietary guidelines, an ever-increasing emphasis on preventive healthcare. In the 1930′s a very similar scenario unfolded in Nazi Germany. Gun control led to gun bans. Smoking regulations led to smoking bans. Dietary recommendations led to mandates and required physical exercise, as well as mandated physical exams. Before long, the German citizen was viewed as the property of the government, with a duty to the fatherland to render his or her life to the service of that government.
Again, study history and, hopefully, learn from it. Every small mandate a free society rejects serves as an obstacle to greater mandates in the future, and thus preserves our collective freedom.
"The price of liberty is constant vigilance."
― Thomas Jefferson
Can some please explain to me why that bothers any one.
Every one has a vice yours could be next
is a member of the 
