Suzanne Roy is the health promotion manager at USM, and she heads the Tobacco Policy Committee that is now advocating for a campus-wide ban on all forms of tobacco — even those that don’t burdan passersby with second-hand smoke. She sat down with The Free Press to discuss that, as well as why she’s ruled out designated smoking areas and why USM smokers shouldn’t stake out a corner of nearby sidewalk just yet.
Have you ever been a smoker?
I was a smoker years ago. I know how hard it is to quit. It took me almost two years before I finally was able to give up smoking altogether, and get the conviction that I’d never do it again.
Do you think the policy with designated smoking areas was just doomed to fail, or might it have been better executed?
I know that everywhere they have isolated smoking sections, it’s doomed to fail. People get relaxed about a policy. At first, people see the markers and try to adhere. Especially in an environment like USM, where there are so many new people coming in all the time, you have people who aren’t aware. And we’ve provided signage; we’ve refurbished some of the designated areas to have receptacles. I even made up cards to hand out, which show where to find the smoking areas, and then there is information about quitting on the back.
But you are now lobbying for the full-on ban. You’re not willing to give designated areas another shot?
Well, they just haven’t worked. That’s what all the evidence has shown, when we had a consultant come in — the district tobacco consultant for Cumberland County. The evidence has shown that it’s just very confusing to people if you say on one hand that smoking is harmful to your health and will cause you to die, then provide areas to do it and receptacles to put cigarettes out in. Are we just going to say we’re concerned about the health of non-smokers only, or do we care about that of smokers? It just sends a mixed message, and says you’re condoning smoking.
A lot of smokers have complained that the current system is poorly advertised, that the allowed areas disappear, and the remaining ones can be buried in snow throughout winter.
That’s true. If they can’t get to the receptacle to put out their butts, they’re not going to smoke there. So that could have been done better. As for the ones that changed, I had talked to facilities management about the placement of some areas, which were on a path that everybody has to walk right by. So they removed those.
Doesn’t it seem to work better in Gorham?
Well, they’ve been going up on the hill, which has become a quasi-designated smoking area. But there are still a lot of students who smoke near the residential halls, and that affects the non-smokers quite a bit. We’ve gotten emails from students with allergies and asthma who have been having trouble breathing. And they’ve said, if you have this policy, why is it not enforced?
The ban isn’t just an idea that occurred to us; it’s actually a trend throughout the state and the country. At the colleges we’re hearing from that are completely tobacco free, over time there is more compliance. There’s a huge sign right at the entrance of UMO’s campus that says “We are a tobacco free campus.”
When you say tobacco bans, that of course includes smokeless tobaccos.
Well, that concerns chewing tobacco, and we haven’t talked about the [electronic] cigarette, but that’s got nicotine. I don’t know enough about it to speak on it.
What is the reason for chewing tobacco to fall under a ban?
Well, we’ve been told that facilities management spends a lot of time cleaning up spittle in doors, entryways, stairwells, shower rooms. There are bottles of it left out — it’s all very gross, obviously. That’s how it affects others.
But this is less extreme than second-hand smoke.
Yes, as far as affecting other people, it doesn’t affect my health.
Shouldn’t they be separate issues?
I don’t know how to answer that. When we’re looking at tobacco products, these are things that all cause cancer.
The spitting is gross to look at, but that’s where the policy gets more involved in an individual’s personal health. Couldn’t that translate to a lot of other things?
No, I don’t see it going in that direction. People always bring that up, that next it will be sugar or whatever, but I think it’s hard to impose certain — I mean, with any policy, is it not that the administration is looking for ‘best outcomes’? Whether it’s decisions they’re making for students in the academic realm or elsewhere. We’re trying to do the best we can to provide the best of services and keep people in a safe environment.
Are you advocating for a specific enforcement technique, like a fine?
I think that’s something that President [Selma Botman] and the administration would have to decide. There do have to be some incentives; there was a time when I kept forgetting to shut my windows on my way out, and I was eventually warned that if I didn’t get better about it, there could be consequences. That’s reasonable. If there aren’t any consequences, people might just do whatever they want.
Won’t many smokers just take their cigarettes and their second-hand smoke out to the public sidewalks nearby?
They certainly might, but we will deal with that. Some people at Oakhurst — since those grounds became smoke-free — have started coming over here to have a cigarette. There is a hospital nearby that has a smoke-free policy, and they’ve been telling their staff members that they want to incorporate streets around the property into that ban, because they don’t want to have it negatively affect residents nearby. So it will probably be written in our own policy to include streets bordering USM property.
It’s not a done deal; there are many issues we need to look at, including what we plan to provide smokers in terms of resources. We need to hear more from the students. We did a quick one day poll asking if people would be willing to sign on to ban, and in a day we had 250 signatures. There is a constituency. But of equal importance is our plan in terms of enforcement, and to accomodate people who do smoke.
Should they get their hopes up for a rooftop smoking section?
Ah — in a dream world.
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