Smoke 'Em While You Can

Come the fall semester, the University at Buffalo will join over 100 campuses nationwide by banning smoking completely on its campus. Designated smoking areas will be gone, forcing smokers to either trek off campus to light up or—what UB is hoping will happen—quit. Many believe the ban is aligned with the UB 2020 plan, which will spend millions of dollars to bolster UB’s reputation as a leading medical campus.

The ban was announced last November through an email to all students in conjunction with the annual Great American Smokeout. Since then, students—both those who smoke and those who do not—have been protesting the order.

In defense of the ban, Helen Cappuccino, co-chair of the newly-formed UBreathe Free Initiative and clinical assistant professor of surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, says, “Owning a gun is legal, but you’re not allowed to have a gun on campus either.”

Cappuccino has received a number of “wildly emotional” responses, but believes the “silent majority” of the UB population is in favor of the ban. “A lot of people are asking for a compromise, but it’s already a compromise and it’s not working,” says Cappuccino, who cites that 30 percent of smokers start during the college years. She admits she and the members of the committee are keeping their a close eye on a Facebook group opposed to the ban called “UBreathe Free IS WRONG,” which boasts nearly 800 members.

“As a smoker, I feel that the impetus toward quitting smoking comes from the smoker his or herself,” says Scott Kerrigan, a linguistics major at UB. He doesn’t think the ban will encourage smokers to quit and is planning a protest for the day the ban goes into effect. He believes strongly that the best thing his liberal arts education is good for is civic engagement in the form of healthy dissent. He hopes to build a “smokers’ coalition” to walk around campus, light up and affirm smokers’ rights to “light up in the free God-given air.”

Part of UB’s goal is to desocialize smoking. Under New York State law, smoking is not allowed in dormitories. “People don’t even think about smoking in the dorms anymore,” says Cappuccino. “I’m hoping the same will happen for the campus.”

The UBreathe Free Committee has been meeting with student leaders to make the ban a “livable policy” and the Student Association passed a resolution in favor of it. Cappuccino says the committee is especially concerned about international students who tend to smoke more. Kerrigan feels that what was needed was a student forum, which would give smokers the chance to voice their dissent. “The people who made this decision obviously just weren’t aware that people actually value the small amount of leisurely meaningless conspicuous consumption in their days,” he says.

Cappuccino says UB’s goal revolves around giving smokers the tools to quit. Since the ban was announced last fall, UB administration has offered clinics, counseling and referrals to the New York State Smokers Quitline. “When the policy first goes into effect, we’re anticipating some protests, but at the same time, we can use it as an opportunity to educate,” Cappuccino says. “The bottom line is, if you can smell smoke, you are breathing cancer-causing chemicals.”

Nick Uruskyj, an international business major at UB and a smoker, disagrees with the policy. He posits that if the university is so concerned with students’ health, more should be done like banning potato chips, which are known to lead to obesity, pancreatic and liver cancer and unhealthy weight levels. “I think they should be addressing a wider variety of issues than just smoking,” he says.

When it comes to enforcing the ban, the specifics are muddy. Cappuccino says it will be policed “in a similar way to drinking or using drugs in the dormitories.” There will be a corrective action process designed and fine amounts assigned, but they aren’t set up yet. The committee has been concerning itself more with how to get people to quit than deciding punishment.

Other campuses to completely ban smoking include Stanford University, Indiana University, and the Pennsylvania State university system. Locally, D’Youville College is the only campus to ban it entirely, but the make-up of its campus is very different from UB. D’Youville is a city campus, meaning that technically smokers can just walk out to the sidewalk and light up on city property. UB is a protected labyrinth of buildings and sidewalks that takes more than 30 seconds to get off of.

Since going smoke-free in 2003, D’Youville has levied four fines total, which have run up to $50 each. Vice President for Student Affairs Robert Murphy admits there still are issues with smokers hovering around doorways in the wintertime, but after reposting signs outside of doorways, smokers have dispersed. He says there wasn’t much of a backlash in response to the ban, which is policed by campus security and personnel.

Still, smokers like Kerrigan and Uruskyj aren’t convinced of the impetus for UB’s ban. “We as smokers don’t want to be a menace or a nuisance any more than they’re making out the behavior to be,” says Kerrigan. “But I really think that they’re going to find come fall that this is going to be more torturous decision than they could have ever imagined.”

—ellen przepasniak