Before Syracuse University officials can consider the possibility of making the campus smoke free, students, professors and staff have identified several hurdles the school must overcome.

“The question isn’t whether smoking is bad for your health,” said New York state Sen. John DeFrancisco. “This has to be determined by balancing the respective interests. Is the harm we’re trying to stop, does it outweigh taking away personal liberty?”

Before justifying a smoking ban, it must be determined whether it causes a serious health threat to non-smoking students, said DeFrancisco at last Thursday’s Campbell Debate, which was a discussion hosted by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. It brought up the issue of smoking outdoors. A large part of the debate focused on students’ personal freedoms.

Currently, there are 1,182 smoke-free campuses in the United States, a 265-percent increase since October 2010, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights. This list includes nearby Cazenovia College and State University of New York Upstate Medical University.

It has yet to be determined what new policies SU will adopt, but in an interview last September, Thomas Dennison, director of the Health Services Management and Policy Program, said, “I think that there’s a pretty good probability that we will be working towards a smoking-free campus.”

The popularity of smoking bans across the country might reflect changing opinions at American universities, said Cliff Douglas, executive director of the University of Michigan’s Tobacco Research Network, at the debate.

While smoking is banned in all indoor locations at SU, the university’s Alcohol, Other Drugs and Tobacco Policy states that it recognizes “the right to smoke where smoking is legally permitted and does not unlawfully affect others.” Students and faculty are currently allowed to smoke outside.

A Colleges for Change survey concluded that almost 1 in 5 undergraduate students smoke, according to a 2011 SU Student Association bill on the on-campus smoking policy. That same year, SA found that students did not support a completely smoke-free campus.

“The fact that the tobacco-free norm has snowballed from a handful of schools — almost none in fact — in 2005 to nearly 1,200 as of this month in 2014 shows that these policies are not only popular, but our universities do not want to remain stuck in the past,” Douglas said.

This is not the first time SU has considered controlling smoking. In 2008, the Campus Sustainability Committee Task Force on Campus Smoking considered the issue of controlling smoking in parking lots and at the Carrier Dome.

The task force determined that controlling smoking in parking areas would be difficult, according to the final report on the issue.

“An addiction is not a choice,” said former SA Vice President Duane Ford at the debate. “Being addicted to tobacco is not a freedom.”

Former SA President Allie Curtis suggested smoking reforms that would protect nonsmokers and smokers alike.

“The most feasible alternative I’ve heard of that I would actually be in favor of here at Syracuse is having a smoker’s hut or a smoker’s gazebo,” she said. “You still have protection for people from the cold and an area away from the doorways.”

Besides outlawing smoking completely, participants also considered creating footage requirements, meaning students are not allowed to smoke within certain distances of buildings, and fining students who litter.

The question of who would enforce such a ban was also discussed. Ford said he believed that periodically asking students to stop smoking would not add significantly to the SU Department of Public Safety’s workload.

“We don’t do it in a policing sort of way.  We do it with information and community support,” Douglas said.

Once the ban is made known, students and faculty would follow the rules, Douglas said.

Douglas said that at the University of Michigan, which has been smoke free since 2011, policies have been found to “significantly reduce tobacco use by members of the community.”

A campus-wide smoking ban could have economic implications for local businesses.  Rich Haskins of the Exscape Smoke Shop on Marshall Street said that a majority of the store’s business comes from students, due to the store’s proximity to campus.

Haskins said if electronic cigarettes were also banned, “it would hurt us a lot.”

Some students might consider smoking a staple of everyday life and a cultural norm that isn’t easy to abandon. Elena Burelomova, a freshman psychology major from Russia, said that although youth smoking is not approved in Europe, it is not as taboo as it is in the United States.

“It’s kind of a big deal here to smoke, and it’s not as common for people of my age to smoke,” said Burelomova, who said she is a smoker.

In Russia, almost 40 percent of the population smokes, according to a June 2013 Voice of America article.

Susan Wadley, a professor of South Asian Studies in Maxwell, said most South Asian students she works with do not smoke.

“I don’t see that many people smoking on campus that visibly, so I don’t know why it has to be such a huge issue,” she said.

Though smoking might be popular among some students, Ford argued in the debate that international culture should not affect SU’s smoking policy.

“Saying that smoking is a part of your culture, I don’t accept that argument. There are cultures in which women are repressed and degraded,” Ford said. “Can those people then come to SU and say, ‘Well, it’s my culture to oppress and degrade women, so I should be able to continue to do that on this campus?’”

Published on January 27, 2014 at 1:36 am

Contact Zach: zdschwei@syr.edu