Smoke-free or free to smoke?

I know that with the title of this article, I’ve already jumped into hot water with both administration and students. I’ll assume that off the bat, no one is happy with me; I understand. In conversation, I work best with examples, so let me open this with two experiences I’ve had on Eastern’s campus.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on my way to work at Zime when I saw a student smoking a cigarette outside of Walton. I was rather startled, as I had never seen someone smoke so blatantly on campus. The student caught my surprised gaze (which, paired with my spin top hat for work, must have been the epitome of professionalism) and asked “What, is something wrong?” and I yelled back “Dude, it’s a smoke-free campus,” as I walked into the building. Later, the student caught up with me and let me know they had no idea Eastern was smoke-free. I said that in their defense, I didn’t blame them.

My second experience was as a student worker over the summer in one of the multiple meetings we had about the continual smell of weed in the summer dorm hallway. As someone with a severely limited sense of smell, I can confirm that the smell was getting ridiculous. During the meeting, after the RDs across the buildings had read the riot act about campus policy, one of the guards on duty had the chance to speak. With some justified colorful language, he let us know that it was ridiculous that we were smoking on this campus, that doing it in the dorms was rude, and that at the end of the day if we really wanted to smoke that badly, there were other places we could do it. He was tired of having to write and report us to local authorities.

Now, I know I’m more of a “read the rulebook” kind of person than a lot of other people; as much as I think you should have read our student handbook before coming here, I understand that a lot of people may not have paid attention to the anti-smoking policy postings on our student conduct, overnight guest, new student orientation, or campus catalog pages. But if you’ve made it past it being noted in the mandatory hall meetings at the beginning of the year, that one might be on you.

On another note, I’m also big on community discussion and creative alternatives. I argued in an article last semester that Eastern didn’t need to be a dry campus. So, with all of my biases and experiences out in the open, let’s get to the main point of my argument.

In our Student Handbook, the statement on smoking policy is that “Eastern University has been a smoke free campus since 1991, an effort led by the student body.” Now, I don’t know about you, but it would appear that the policy that was once student-led really doesn’t seem to be that student-led anymore. Given that the original conditions of how this policy was upheld have fallen, it may be time to figure out what role this policy is playing in our community.

To make my opinions on the matter clear, I think that Eastern should remain a smoke-free campus. I want to let anyone who is struggling with addiction know that our university offers multiple counseling services if you need help and that people like your RDs are there to help connect you with university and local resources to beat addiction. However, I am one person in this student body, and furthermore, I am not one of the people who is directly involved with upholding this policy. If Eastern switched its policy to become smoke-friendly, I’d be less than amused, but I’d also understand that it would simply be a policy of the university I am attending.

My problem with this policy is how largely it has been ignored and how impossible it has been to do anything about it. Beyond the occasional meeting with a Resident Director reminding everyone that we are a smoke-free campus, I have yet to hear anyone truly crack down on the importance of being smoke-free. Given Eastern’s disciplinary procedures, they could remove any students they found in violation of this policy. It doesn’t seem like they want to do that. The responsibility truly rests on the student level of RAs who can’t do anything without the backing of the administration, security guards who are getting tired of dealing with the violations and students on both sides of the argument are getting increasingly frustrated about the policy.

Eastern is certainly not new to changing its policies to reflect the larger student body and local church opinion; after all, it was during my freshman year here that Eastern stepped back from its non-affirming stance on the LGBTQ+ community for those reasons. While marijuana in particular remains a matter of state law, smoking does not. In the same way that Eastern’s LGBTQ+ policy became a matter of discussion and change due to student opinion on the matter changing, it may be that we need to open discussion once more on whether or not this policy holds the same importance that it once did.

Perhaps the Eastern administration wants to keep this policy and needs to change its procedures about how it addresses the issue. Maybe our university as a whole has moved away from the original principles that created this policy. My point is that if Eastern is wrestling with a policy that doesn’t seem to be cared about or upheld by anybody, maybe it’s time we open up discussion about what it’s doing and why it is or is not important to our overall goals as a university.