As many as 28.5 percent of US college students reported smoking a tobacco product in the past year, according to a recent Harvard study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Therefore, a campus of 5,000 (approximately the size of Tufts University) would typically have 1,425 smokers. Because 33 percent of smokers eventually die from tobacco use, a full 470 Tufts University students - nearly ten percent of the total - will die prematurely because of an addiction that took root during their college years.
My brother began to smoke while he was in high school because his friends did it. It was one of those I-want-to-be-cool things. By the time he went to college he was smoking a pack a day. When I asked him why he continued to smoke, he told me that it seemed like everyone was smoking, so he never really felt the need to quit. He would tell me that he could quit if he wanted to, you know, just smoke at night or when he had a drink. He stopped buying cigarettes but began to bum them from his friends. I never understood why he smoked when he knew all the risks involved. When I arrived at Tufts, I realized that there were hundreds of people just like my brother. Now I am almost finished with college, a non-smoker; I wish my brother and more people like him could say the same.
Smoking brings about health risks that are not limited exclusively to smokers themselves. Secondhand smoke is a Class A carcinogen, just like asbestos. It has been shown to cause respiratory problems, heart attacks, asthma attacks, and many other health-related problems.
Half of the college students surveyed in the Harvard study said that they had tried to quit several times in the previous year, suggesting that more aggressive and comprehensive "smoke free" policies would be effective on campuses.
Universities that allow smoking in dormitories are putting students, especially non-smokers living with smokers, in a harmful environment. Attempts to eradicate exposure to secondhand smoke through limiting smoking to enclosed spaces is also ineffective because smoke can travel through open doorframes, heating vents, and easily travels outside the established boundary. In addition, smoking indoors poses a serious fire hazard.
Because of these dangers, Tufts University should take the initiative to provide a smoke-free environment for its staff and the entire student body. This would entail turning all buildings on campus, including dorms, into smoke-free areas. For students who smoke and would like to quit, the school should provide a user-friendly program in which they can get the help needed to become smoke-free.
Tufts University should provide free, accessible tobacco treatment on campus and should publicize its availability. Because it has been found that students want to quit, easily accessible information and medical treatment provided by the University may both increase the enthusiasm of those trying to quit and may increase the number of students that do quit for good.
Many schools are working to implement the tobacco-free policies, while others have already taken partial steps. The University of New Hampshire has banned smoking in all of its 26 residence halls. In the fall of 1998, smoking became prohibited in all of Harvard's residential houses as well as freshman dormitories. Also, Boston University's dining facilities are smoke free.
Do we want to come back to our class reunion ten years from now and hear that some of our classmates have had to deal with debilitating health problems that they could have avoided with the help of the university? I don't want to. That is why Tufts should follow this lead to actively protect the health of its students and staff. I urge not only the administration, but students as well, to examine existing "smoke-free" universities and take the initiative to begin implementing a policy at Tufts University.
Cecilia Meijer is a senior majoring in sociology and international relations.
