Recent policies on campus will further restrict where people can smoke and a court decision made in November changed the warnings that tobacco companies have to publish.
The Board of Regents approved a policy in June that will change the university policy from prohibiting smoking indoors and within 25 feet of a building entrance to limiting smoking to designated areas approved by the university president, according to the General Administration section of the Consolidated USM and UMD Policies and Procedures. The ban will take effect in June 2013.
The stated reason for the ban is to promote a “healthy, smoke-free environment,” according to General Administration policies.
“I understand that smoking is bad for you, but banning it takes away a certain freedom we’re entitled to have,” said Hariton Wilson, a junior Russian language major and self described habitual smoker. “If they are going to ban smoking they should ban McDonalds; they are both bad for your health.”
Wilson said that smoking is a natural ice breaker when it comes to meeting new people.
“There are other things that add to air pollution on campus besides smoking,” said Sherwin Fong, a sophomore computer engineering major.
Fong said the ban will not affect him much since he does not smoke and is not near smokers very often.
On Nov. 27 a federal judge ordered tobacco companies to publish specific statements that say the companies mislead the public about the dangers of smoking, according the United States v Philip Morris USA, Inc. decision. “Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans. Every day” and “Defendant tobacco companies intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive” are among the statements defined in the court ruling.
“I don’t see any harm in extra warning labels, but the notion that the public has been misled is wrong,” Wilson said. “It has never been a secret that smoking is harmful.”