smoke

Recently, more than 8,000 University of Wisconsin-
La Crosse students began spring semester and fell back into their schedule of classes. Students have about 10 minutes between consecutive courses to walk to the building of their next class.

Unfortunately, smokers often congregate in areas directly outside entrances, blowing patches of haze into the faces of students and staff. It’s the kind of tobacco smoke that holds more than 4,000 chemicals, 60 of which are cancer causing.

Discussion of smoke-free campuses for UW-L, the city of La Crosse and La Crosse County is progressing. Gundersen Lutheran, Franciscan Skemp and Western Technical College led the smoke-free effort earlier this year, as all three enacted policies restricting on-campus smoking.

A smoke-free campus could only improve UW-L. UW-L boasts popular health and sports science programs; isn’t it only fitting to provide a campus where healthy activities are promoted and harmful ones prohibited? Not only is nicotine a drug; it’s considered a poison.

Allocating a certain number of feet from buildings as no-smoking zones is impractical. Does anyone really know where that invisible line 25 feet from the building is? Most smokers adhere to this regulation, but there are still the few who walk out the door and immediately light up, forcing bystanders to unwillingly enter a cloud of poisonous chemicals.

Besides, public smoking is inconsiderate. Smokers have every right to enndanger their own well being, but smoking in public impinges on others’ health as well. I realize smokers can’t simply end their habit when smoke-free regulations are enacted, so a compromise should begin any smoke-free effort.

Perhaps, at the least,

UW-L should take the first step to achieve a completely smoke-free campus by allocating a few designated areas outside. Nonsmokers knowing of these locations could easily avoid the areas and take an alternative route or entrance. This is not a solution, merely a temporary improvement.

I also agree with Gunder-sen Lutheran’s smoke-free policy, which prohibits smoking on campus and sidewalks near the facility, while allowing people to smoke in private vehicles.

The difficulties of any idea, however, lie in enforcement. Law enforcement must fully commit to implement these regulations, which introduces the possibility of increased law enforcement staff to correct any wrongdoers.

It would be difficult to enforce a ban on smoking in private vehicles. Students and staff could easily light up in their cars without being seen by officials, because parking lots could not be patrolled incessantly throughout the day.

Why enact a regulation that invites people to ignore or get around it? As long as the windows are rolled up, the smoker is only hurting him or herself and should be allowed to do so.

A smoking ban wouldn’t aspire to force people to quit or impose on people’s right to smoke; it would stop the punishment for those of us who choose not to.

Kelliann Blazek, a student at UW-L, is one of 12 Tribune Community Columnists, whose writing appears on the Sunday Opinion pages.

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