Effective Smoking Policy

Effective Smoking Policy for a Better College Environment Smoking is a modern plague on society that has been causing health and environmental issues for the past few centuries. As public opinion on the dangers of smoking has vastly evolved over the past century, many college campuses across the United States have shifted to a learning environment free of tobacco use. While banning all forms of tobacco use seems like an easy solution to the problem, secondhand smoking and cigarette littering are still a major issue that even extends outside of universities. Reducing the amount of smoking is an important factor in the overall health and cleanliness of a campus. With many campuses having ineffective policies on smoking, having a program that

With this is mind, researchers are comparing the effectiveness of different smoking policies. Overall, having a stricter smoking policy will reduce litter and secondhand smoking on college campuses. Dr. Kari Jo Harris and associates report that while there has been an overall reduction in smoking in the United States, the college smoking rates have not shown similar reductions. In a study done by Harris et al., the number of smoking violations on a college campus were counted as they increased the level of policy enforcement. In the first phase, the researchers did not intervene in any violations and found that the compliance with smoke free zones was a mere thirty-three percent. This data correlates with the results from the Seitz study as it shows that there is a lack of compliance with a passive form of smoking policy. However, in the next phase of the study, the researchers intervened by adding clearly marked non-smoking areas with more signs and by having people intervene with smokers, giving them cards that reflected whether they were in compliance with policies. In this phase, there was a near reversal of the results with seventy-seven percent of smokers following the campuses policies. Having a well defined nonsmoking area discourages people from breaking these rules, leading to a healthier campus with less secondhand smoking.

As more people quit smoking, the amount of preventable smoking deaths can only go down. Many colleges have banned smoking but lack the initiative to take policies further than that. According to researcher Kirsten C. Rodgers, the five-component plan developed by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation is an effective way to improve campus policies. The plan includes tobacco free environments, reduced sales and advertisements, enforcement, education, and cessation programs (Rodgers, 258). Having a comprehensive plan that covers all these components can have effects that go on to help prevent smoking in current and future generations. It is important that current smokers have proper programs designed to help them quit smoking. Banning smoking only helps the people that do not smoke while ignoring the fact that many people are heavily addicted to tobacco. Another way that the plan is successful is because it reduces student exposure to smoking. In a study done by Dr. Amanda Fallin, found that “past 30-day smoking was highest (19%) among students on campuses with designated smoking areas…compared to 10% to 12% on campuses with other policies” (Fallin et al., 1098). With designated smoking areas instead of a smoking ban, the overall number of students that smoke is nearly double that of campuses with smoking or tobacco bans. The study also found that colleges with smoking areas had