CUNY May Ban Smoking From All Campuses

Tobacco Campaign

Like hundreds of other universities across the country, CUNY is poised to become almost entirely smoke-free. The Board of Trustees will meet today to vote on a plan to prohibit smoking from all 23 CUNY campuses; currently smoking is only banned inside buildings and CUNY vehicles. In addition, all tobacco industry promotions, advertising, marketing, and distribution would be prohibited on campus properties, and tobacco industry sponsorship of athletic events and athletes would be prohibited. Of course, some students call this discrimination.

"I think it's pretty discriminatory," CUNY student Rob Assini tells NY1. "Smoking is a choice that's made by adults. And if people choose to do so, especially in a highly stressful environment such as a college environment, and people feel the need to blow off steam by smoking, then I feel they should be free to." But administrators at CUNY, the nation's largest urban public university, say research shows secondhand smoke—even outdoors—has harmful biological consequences. They estimate that as many as 85 percent of CUNY's student body, faculty, and staff are non-smokers, and contend that most of the smoking minority want to quit.

"Expanding the University's policy would therefore achieve a dual effect: motivating current smokers to cease smoking, and safeguarding CUNY students, faculty, and staff—more than 85 percent of whom are nonsmokers—from the toxic effects of secondhand smoke," says CUNY's Tobacco Policy Advisory Committee. Regardless of today's vote, the College of Staten Island is already phasing in a ban, and expects the entire campus to be smoke-free next year. The prohibition comes as the NYC Health Department is pushing to ban smoking from parks, beaches, boardwalks, and, eventually, within 500 yards of Mayor Bloomberg.

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By John Del Signore in News on January 24, 2011 10:45 AM

Comments [rss]

Gregory Smith

What's next? CUNY bans fat people? CUNY bans people from eating bad food? CUNY bans the Nicotine gum? Better put on your swastikas, people, seems like Nazi Germany is on the rise again. Get ready for The Auschwitz Diet as the Master Health forces everyone on a treadmill. Health Uber Alles. Right?
http://libertarians4freedom.bl...

Inconcievable de Impublishable

Wow. No.

nicemarmot

"especially in a highly stressful environment such as a college environment"

Heh...if this dude thinks going to CUNY is high stress, he's going to be a carton-a-day chainsmoker when he has to look for a job.

random transplant

That 15% who smokes is going to retain less information & test less well if their fiending for nicotine. Coddling the other 85% isn't going to prepare them for life beyond graduation & this ban isn't going to effectively shield them from second hand smoke on such an open campus as "cuny".

Guest

and why not? prohibition worked out well the first time around! right?

so grab your pitchfork, smokeless torch, and command us sinners to live the clean, proper, wholesome life. nanny or bust!

Mordicai

Hey, if you want to seal yourself in your home & smoke, that is fine with me. I just don't understand why you think you get extra pollution rights. I don't like litter & I don't like bad smells & I don't like cancer. That is my side of the issue.

random transplant

Most American smokers pay the highest air pollution tax in the world. We pay a tax & thats what gives us the right to smoke (in about 1/3 as many areas as we used to take for granted).

If you are unhappy with this arraignment, and want clean air, perhaps finding a way to finance state education without tobacco taxes is a more realistic place to start.

You don't really want kids smoking "sealed in their home", which is their public dorm room, do you?

Guest

right on.

i don't litter. i smoke away from people and am conscious that others don't like the smell of tobacco. there are no studies that prove a real health risk for outdoor smoking. and despite that 85% "stat" there are plenty of studies that show that a quarter to nearly one-half of college students use tobacco. how does this ban work for those who live on campus? or ban it on sidewalks? or in cars? or, since we're already heading in that direction, banning smoking everywhere?

its abundantly clear that certain vocal people don't like smokers. the anti-smoking alarmists have successfully portrayed a subset of the population into veritable pariah. this is a long-standing tradition.

everyone needs a scapegoat for society's ills and since its no longer socially acceptable in NYC to use race, religion, immigration status, or sexual orientation to vilify, we have found a convenient new group. that's cool and all, but do we really need to legislate and publicly eradicate forms of behavior because one group thinks that behavior is unseemly or distasteful?

look up some of the hysterical texts preceding prohibition. those teetotalers were no less committed to their cause. the hysteria displayed in reefer madness is a lot of fun too! oh wells...

Mordicai

First off, if you really don't litter-- then that is a step in the right direction. I've said before-- I really think it is the tobacco PRODUCERS who should be paying the fines & taxes more than the consumer. I don't want a prohibition-- I want tobacco (& marijuana, for that matter) treated like alcohol. Go to a smoke bar, or smoke at home, & I'll shut up. I would like to see cigarettes gone-- cheap crappy McDonald's tobacco, formulated to give you enough nicotine to keep you hooked but not enough to satisfy the craving? Bah.

I think maybe comparing the plight of the smoker to the civil rights struggle is probably a bridge too far, though.

Guest

i think nonsmokers pushing for their right to clean air public space is good, to a point. but lets not forget that the movement to remove smoking in public spaces has been going on for quite some time (ahh, airplane smoking). between bans and sin taxes, the anti-smoker movement has become entirely excessive to the point of persecution -- hence the admittedly melodramatic civil rights nod.

my main argument is that recent anti-smoking legislation there is no bargaining or compromise. for instance, years ago Albany required bars and restaurants to install expensive air filtration systems only to turn around a short time later to ban indoor smoking altogether. politicians at the behest of insurance company lobbyists have decided that businesses can't cater to smokers. there are no "smoke bars" except for the few that risk fines to secretly cater to us in speakeasy style! now the same interest groups are going further to make smoking a crime in publicly-funded shared spaces.

also don't forget that tobacco companies have paid and continue to pay millions upon millions of dollars in settlements and punitive damages.

i know from your posts that you are not sympathetic to the smoker's plight. i thank you, however, for pausing to consider how personal the debate on how to use public spaces is for the people who are being targeted by this type of legislation.

Mordicai

You are right that the "Smoke Bar" is largely hypothetical-- & that bars of all kinds in NYC are screwed by antique stuff like the Cabaret laws. I would like to see a better diffusion of recreational options-- I don't think that the "Drugs will MURDER A BABY! DARE!!!!" extreme works-- like you've said, the Prohibition was a disaster, & so is the "War" on Drugs. I just think the way people are dealing with Tobacco is all screwy & wrong.

I just want you to be able to go enjoy artisanal cigars at the local Smoke Bar, is my point. Cigarettes draw my ire-- since the conspiracies in that direction are actually true-- more than the act itself.

Politburo

"Hey, if you want to seal yourself in your home & smoke, that is fine with me."

In what world does that sound like a hysterical prohibitionist?

Guest

i was not singling out or name-calling this esteemed commenter. quite obviously i was speaking about moralist policies in public space that are being decided without vote or even on a factual basis. i honestly don't see much validity to the issue in your response.