Revisiting the Effects of the University of Toledo’s Smoking Ban on Campus

Ashley Diel, Staff Reporter

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It has been a little over a year since the University of Toledo has gone tobacco free, with the ban yielding mixed results on student attitudes.

The ban includes not only cigarettes, but also chewing tobacco, e-cigarettes, snus and cigars.

Many students agree with the ban, including Scott Tres, a first-year undecided student who grew up around smokers.

“I have always hated the smell of smoke,” Tres said. “My parents smoked and a lot of people at my high school did too. I think that it is great that UT has implemented the ban because in the long run it will only help the health of the students that go here.”

However, regardless of the ban, it is still not uncommon to see students smoking around campus.

“I think the ban is kind of stupid,” said Brandon Prece, a third-year business major. “In my opinion, I should be able to smoke since I am allowed to by law. I understood when they had the smoking huts, but completely banning it on a college campus seems a bit extreme to me.”

Prece said he also would not stop smoking on campus because the ban is not enforced.

Vicki Riddick, the director of Rocket Wellness, said the consequences of being found smoking on campus depends on who is being caught, but did not give any details as to what the consequences are.

“There is different protocol for students and a different protocol for faculty, staff and visitors,” Riddick said. “The appropriate level of discipline is put into place if it is being violated. It is part of the policy that all students need to follow.”

Due to the vagueness of the consequences of being caught smoking, Prece said he is not worried about getting in trouble or even being told to stop smoking while on campus.

“My friends and I all smoke on campus,” Prece said. “I do not know anyone who has actually gotten into trouble for smoking and I have also never been approached and told to stop smoking. I do think some students may have stopped smoking on campus due to all of the signs they have up, but I don’t think there is really any kind of disciplinary actions if you are caught smoking.”

However, some students who smoke have taken the ban into consideration and try their best to follow it.

“I respect UT’s decision to have the ban,” said Carly Phill, a third-year business major. “Whenever I do decide to smoke, I walk off campus to do it. I understand that nonsmokers should not have to be around smoke and I respect that.”

Phill said she has also cut down on the amount she smokes while she is on campus due to the ban.

“Sometimes I don’t have time to walk off campus,” she said. “I used to have a cigarette on my way between classes, but now with the ban I don’t do that. I don’t always have the time to walk off for a few minutes because I am already running to class.”

Riddick said having UT as a tobacco-free campus is the healthiest environment for students, but she understands how hard it is for students to quit using tobacco.

“We aren’t saying you have to quit immediately, but we are asking people to please not smoke while they are here,” Riddick said. “We try to give as much support throughout the transitional phases as possible.”

She said UT has been offering free classes for students to quit smoking as well as offering help from the Counseling Center, either one on one or through their tobacco hotline.

“Our goal is not to be punitive,” Riddick said. “We really want to help people quit smoking because it’s really one of the most modifiable risk factors to prevent so many diseases. When someone is 18-24 years old they may not be thinking about what kind of an effect it will have on their health in 20 years.”

Tres said he hopes the ban will make people realize just how bad smoking is.

“I think the ban is going to make people think more,” he said. “They will have to think about what they are doing even if they decide not to follow the ban because it will still be in the back of their minds. Hopefully they will realize that maybe smoking isn’t the healthiest thing to do.”

Riddick said it is everyone’s responsibility to keep campus smoke-free and to kindly ask smokers to put out their cigarettes while they are on campus.

“Knowing that for a college campus, it’s a difficult thing to ask. Really, it’s a cultural shift whereas healthier students come to campus, the access to healthier options is one of the things that as an institution we need to be providing to our students.”

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5 Comments

  • Jack Listerio

    …………Senate hearings in July showed the same ill effects of the 1920s in todays world of smoking bans and High Taxation with MASSIVE BOOTLEGGING and lost revenues with heavy enforcement costs.

    ” The high tax burden on tobacco results in de facto prohibition of the products, bringing all the undesirable outcomes associated with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. In our research we have found evidence of substantial tobacco smuggling from low to high tax jurisdictions, violent crime, theft of tobacco and tobacco tax stamps, corruption of law-enforcement officers, and even funding of terrorist organizations through crime rings.”

    People are smoking more now than ever as your anti-smoking world collapases around you.

    Tobacco Taxation and Unintended Consequences: U.S. Senate Hearing on Tobacco Taxes Owed, Avoided, and Evaded

    July 29, 2014

    By

    Scott Drenkard

    Drenkard Statement to U.S. Senate Finance Committee July 2014

    Hearing on Tobacco: Taxes Owed, Avoided, and Evaded
    Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance

    Chairman Wyden, Ranking Member Hatch, and members of the Committee:

    I appreciate the opportunity to submit this statement on tobacco taxes and their impact across the country. In the 77 years since our founding in 1937, the Tax Foundation has monitored tax policy trends at the federal and state levels, and our data and research are heavily relied upon by policymakers, the media, and the general public. Our analysis is guided by the idea that taxes should be as simple, neutral, transparent, and stable as possible, and as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, we take no position on any pending legislation.

    We hope that the material we provide will be helpful in the Committee’s consideration of the issue.

    Executive Summary

    Tobacco taxes are the highest they have ever been in the United States. The federal rate currently stands at $1.0066 per pack of cigarettes, and state and local rates add as much as an additional $6.16 per pack (as in Chicago, Illinois). These combined rates are equivalent to a tax in excess of 200 percent in some locales.

    The high tax burden on tobacco results in de facto prohibition of the products, bringing all the undesirable outcomes associated with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. In our research we have found evidence of substantial tobacco smuggling from low to high tax jurisdictions, violent crime, theft of tobacco and tobacco tax stamps, corruption of law-enforcement officers, and even funding of terrorist organizations through crime rings.

    The Mackinac Center for Public Policy estimates that 56.9 percent of the cigarettes consumed in New York State in 2012 were smuggled into the state from other locales. Other states with substantial smuggling problems include Arizona (51.5 percent), New Mexico (48.1 percent), Washington (48.0 percent) and Wisconsin (34.6 percent).

    In addition to smuggling authentic cigarettes from low to high tax jurisdictions, criminals sometimes skirt the legal market altogether and counterfeit name brand products and state tobacco tax stamps. Cigarette counterfeiting is a highly profitable international business that exposes consumers to products with increased levels of dangerous chemicals like lead and thallium. Other sources report finding insect eggs, dead flies, mold, and human feces in counterfeit cigarettes. One source estimates that the Chinese cigarette counterfeiting business produces 400 billion cigarettes per year.

    In 1994, federal cigarette excise taxes in Canada were cut from $16 to $11 per carton because cigarette smuggling had grown so pervasive.

    [Reply]

  • Jack Listerio

    ………OSHA also took on the passive smoking fraud and this is what came of it:

    Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Third Edition

    This sorta says it all

    These limits generally are based on assessments of health risk and calculations of concentrations that are associated with what the regulators believe to be negligibly small risks. The calculations are made after first identifying the total dose of a chemical that is safe (poses a negligible risk) and then determining the concentration of that chemical in the medium of concern that should not be exceeded if exposed individuals (typically those at the high end of media contact) are not to incur a dose greater than the safe one.

    So OSHA standards are what is the guideline for what is acceptable ”SAFE LEVELS”

    OSHA SAFE LEVELS

    All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.

    For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes.

    “For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes.

    “Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.

    Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.

    “For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes.

    For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time.

    The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.

    So, OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :

    Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA.

    Why are their any smoking bans at all they have absolutely no validity to the courts or to science!

    [Reply]

  • Jack Listerio

    …………Colleges being forced to go smokefree by Obama Administration

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an initiative to ban smoking from college campuses last month. This is part of the HHS goal to create a society free of tobacco-related disease and death, according to their action plan released by the HHS in 2010.

    Colleges who fail to enact campus-wide smoking bans and other tobacco-free policies may soon face the loss of grants and contracts from the HHS, according to the plan. Western receives grants through a subdivision of the HHS called the National Institutes of Health, Acting Vice Provost for Research Kathleen Kitto said.

    Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses

    President Barack Obama has already promised not to smoke cigarettes in the White House. If his administration has its way, American college students will soon be required to follow suit while they’re on campus.

    [Reply]

  • Jack Listerio

    ………………NRT Failure Rate Soars to 98.4%

    New revelations confirm that Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) has a documented long term failure rate of 98.4%.

    PRLog (Press Release) - Apr 03, 2009 -
    New revelations confirm that Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) has a documented long term failure rate of 98.4%.

    NRT is the Government’s recommended treatment for its smoking cessation programmes and is heavily funded by the tax-payer.

    Pro-choice group Freedom2choose are alarmed at these revelations and the obvious waste of tax-payers’ funds. Colin Grainger, vice chairman of the group states, “NRT products are obviously unfit for the purpose for which they are sold. This is fraud, wrong and immoral.”

    Freedom2choose have previously highlighted alternative ways to successfully quit smoking, including the Allen Carr method, with a documented success rate of 58% for those choosing to give up. The Allen Carr method even promises a money back guarantee to those that don’t successfully quit.

    “More worryingly,” continues Colin Grainger “is the shock that the scientists who put the study together even work for the manufacturers of NRT. This clearly shows how the Big Pharmaceutical companies influence the outcome of studies.”

    The revelations were originally made public by long-term anti-smoking campaigner Professor Michael Siegel who states “With a long-term smoking cessation percentage of only 1.6%, one can hardly call NRT treatment an “effective” intervention. In fact, the logical conclusion from this paper is that NRT was a dismal intervention.”

    Friday, July 27, 2012
    Pharmaceutical Nicotine and Chantix: 93% Failure Rate Reconfirmed

    A study published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine indicates that pharmaceutical nicotine and Chantix (varenicline) had 93% failure rates at two inner city academic health center clinics with predominantly Medicaid patients (abstract here).

    [Reply]

  • bobbyt2012

    The problem is noticeably worse. Perhaps they have encouraged people to quit smoking, but the effects on bystanders have increased. Without enforcement it’s an absolute failed policy.

    [Reply]

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Revisiting the Effects of the University of Toledo’s Smoking Ban on Campus