Adam Leary
UML Student

There is a substantial desire in the Umass Lowell community to ban smoking on campus. We all know that smoking is harmful for both the smoker and those exposed to second hand smoke and it makes sense to try to get students to stop smoking. However, when we take a look at the idea of banning smoking we see that this idea has many more negatives than positives.

Smoking should not be banned on campus. Such a move will do little more than aggravate smokers. I’m all for discouraging smoking, but this would only have symbolic impact, throwing support behind a cause without causing any concrete change. I doubt anyone who is addicted to smoking will feel compelled to quit if this ban is put in place. This ban would not benefit students who do not smoke either. Banning smoking would not have any practical benefits.

A smoking ban cannot be enforced will. People are going to break the rules. How would we enforce it? One possibility is with fines, which seem inappropriate to place on college students who usually do not have much money. Another possibility is with more severe punishments which would endanger a student’s college career. I do not think many people would want to jeopardize someone’s college career for smoking.

One might suggest that it is worth it to ban smoking just to get Umass Lowell behind the anti-smoking cause. I say that our efforts should be limited to practical applications. Gestures and ineffective rules do not help anyone.
Having designated smoking areas is not a good idea either. While they are a better choice for smokers than banning smoking entirely, they would also fail to meaningfully address campus smoking habits.

Instead, we could choose many courses of action to discourage people from smoking. Perhaps we could invest in programs and services to help students who want to quit but have difficulty doing so. Another method might be to try to generate enthusiasm for quitting smoking around campus. This could be accomplished with students campaigning and group activity.

It is a good thing that some student activity is focused against smoking but banning smoking outright is the wrong move. Banning smoking would be an impractical, solely symbolic action which would not benefit anyone. Instead, we could improve the health of the Umass Lowell student population by discouraging smoking.