Many of the shifting campus policies came in the wake of a statement issued by the American College Health Association (ACHA) in February of 2005 calling for colleges and universities to establish "No Tobacco Use" policies.
Most recently, Grand Rapids Community College joined the clean-air parade this semester by promising to issue fines of up to $30 for on-campus smoking. Others that have embraced similar policies include the entire Pennsylvania state university system in September of 2008 and University of California at Davis in 2006.
In terms of the presence of on-campus puffing, Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said that he has not heard many express concern, apart from the rare complaint of smoker congregation around campus facilities, notably the sixth floor of the Dowling Hall parking garage during wintry conditions.
"It has only really been brought up as a safety issue from the Fire Marshal's office," Reitman said. "I can't tell you whether it will become a national policy or law that you can't smoke anywhere on campuses, but I can tell you that it's not voiced generally as a problem here, so we don't pay a lot of attention to it."
Since the campus banned smoking in all indoor spaces, in accordance with similar legislation passed in Somerville in 2003, the prevalence of on-campus tobacco use has failed to propel Tufts along the same no-smoke trajectory that at least 305 higher education institutions nationwide have voluntarily chosen.
Reitman explained that such a policy could likely prove to be ineffective, only worsening matters by forcing smokers to extend their fume-ridden presence out into neighbors' backyards. Problematic community interactions along this same vein have already been reported to have soured the ban instated at Montgomery College in Rockville, M.D. less than one year ago.
"To some extent, unless it's really banning smoking or the sale of tobacco products period, it's an artificial policy. It's just pushing the barrier back to the next street," Reitman said. "We may own one street, but we don't own other streets, even though they might run right through our campus. We would have no jurisdiction of control in these areas, so I'm not sure if it's a useful approach unless Somerville, Medford or Massachusetts did something at the same time."
Reitman also cited the likelihood that students' thinning wallets will make a greater, more rapid impact on their decision to light up.
"At the rate cities, towns, states are taxing cigarettes, that's going to wipe it out before policies do," he said.
Tufts-specific data retrieved from a recent ACHA survey revealed that 70 percent of students said they never use cigarettes, while 16 percent said they do smoke but have not done so in the last 30 days, according to Tufts Director of Alcohol and Health Education Ian Wong. These figures line up closely with nationwide collegiate levels of tobacco use.
Wong, who has previously worked at University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Babson College, said that tobacco use seems less prevalent at Tufts than at the other institutions he has personally observed.
"One thing I've noticed on this campus is that I don't really see a lot of students smoking overall," Wong said. "So it's not like in the old days when you used to walk onto a college campus and people would be smoking left and right."
Still, Wong said that in observing smoking behavior amongst various colleges, he has noticed disparities among demographic groups. For one, international student populations typically smoke more.
In regards to such observations, Reitman cautioned that a campus-wide prohibition of smoking could place unreasonable expectations on individuals growing up within a different cultural context.
"Should we be sensitive to international students, who are 17 percent of the community here, who have grown up … in an environmental where they smoke?" Reitman said. "Can we expect them just to stop?"
The fact remains, though, that young adult tobacco use has not declined enough to make ACHA's Healthy Campus 2010 goal of reducing the percentage of college smokers to below 10.5 percent by next year a feasible one.
While Wong agrees that the smoking conditions at Tufts likely do not require a campus-wide ban, he said that if proven necessary, distinct smoking areas could prove effective to shield nonsmokers from secondhand smoke.
"If I speak with students and they are saying that smoke from outside of the residence halls is wafting into their rooms, I may look at the situation and say, ‘What we really need to do is create distinct smoking areas that don't interfere,'" Wong said.
Wong, a relatively new member of the Tufts community, has hopes to develop cessation programs that could provide huge assistance to students battling cigarette addiction in a group setting.
"First, we need to support those who don't want to smoke so it's not an environmental issue," Wong said. "I think we also need to make a better effort at helping those who want to quit and move forward on that. What's always hard about helping college students quit smoking is that there is never a big enough group to support them to stop smoking. They usually come as individuals, and it's kind of hard to quit anything as an individual."
According to Wong, aspects of college smoking behavior — in particular, the widespread trend of self-identifying as a "social smoker" — may portend dangerous life-long habits, which the aforementioned program development would seek to address.
A 2005 study examined by the American Lung Association in its "Big Tobacco on Campus: Ending the Addiction" report revealed that one in five "social" smokers become daily smokers over the course of college attendance.
Wong also argued that dependence on tobacco use for stress relief in college could potentially carry over beyond graduation.
"Smoking is one of those psychological things too, something people use to calm them down," Wong said. "How do you get students who smoke because of academic stress to leave college, quit and then still manage stressors without smoking again?"
Though skeptical of the success of a campus-wide smoke-free plan for Jumbos, Reitman noted that the rapidly increasing demand for healthy living residence halls might indicate a future for such a policy.
"Demand for those beds keeps outpacing the ability to change over the designation of areas," Reitman said. "These students are typically not smokers, not drinkers. They really want to be in a different kind of culture, and they are requesting to be among others who have the same inclination. That would seem to lead towards a ban on smoking in general, but again, it's not useful unless people seriously paid attention to the policies if they were passed."
Some students agree that while a campus-wide ban is unnecessary, certain alterations to Tufts' smoking policy could prove beneficial for those who abstain.
"I don't like the ‘Big Brother' aspect of banning campus smoking, but I think Tufts should encourage people not to smoke," sophomore Cody Valdes said. "A ban fosters a bad relationship between Tufts and its students. On the other hand, for the same reasons they've banned it in public areas, it's not something I want to be breathing in. It'd be nice if the academic quad or library roof was smoke-free."
Like Reitman, others doubt the effectiveness of such a hard-nosed policy.
"I think a stringent strategy would be more likely to drive many smokers to secrecy or other locations than cause them to quit entirely," senior Sarah Keefe said. "A better option would be to raise public awareness of smoking hazards and inform people of campus resources and support for quitting smoking."
Keefe, a nonsmoker, said that she has yet to feel uncomfortable by the number of smokers on campus.
"I don't usually see people smoking inside or near campus buildings. Most smokers I see go outside of Tufts buildings or are in private homes off campus," she said. "As long as smoking does not take place inside campus buildings, it doesn't bother me."
Students largely form a consensus in asserting that the preservation of individual decision-making on campus should trump school policies that would restrict their rights.
"When I smoke every once in a while, I always make sure to put the butts in a bin," sophomore Ed Ledoux said. "As long as people are responsible, they should be able to choose for themselves."
