Enforceability of the smoking ban.

Leaving the moral arguments to the side for a second, we must evaluate the practical consequences the ban might have on university life:

1) Financial Cost.

Many claims have been made concerning the effect the smoking ban will have on our tuition costs. Regardless of whether those are true or false, we must consider some of the additional costs that implementing the ban will definitely have on the students. It would be extremely hard for Public Safety to put the ban into practice without any additional human resources. A reason why the current restriction, stipulating that people shouldn’t smoke at less than 20 feet from the entrance of a building, is not effective is that Public Safety can not afford to charge any of its professional staff members with this specific task. If they hire additional staff members in order to meet the higher demand for policy enforcement on our campus, this will result in additional costs that will most likely be transferred to the students. Thus, even if the claims that the ban will make the health insurances the university purchases cheaper is true, it is still uncertain how the ban will affect the students, because of the high price associated with implementing it. The alternative will be not to hire any additional staff members and simply implement the ban just as well as the current ’20-feet’ rule is implemented, which makes arguing whether the ban is justified a complete waste of time…

2) Policy Implementation.

Regardless of whether Public Safety hires more personal or not, we must consider the other problems on our campus they are facing on a daily basis. If the public safety officers are instructed to prioritize implementing and sanctioning the smoking ban, this will compromise their ability to deal with unquestionably more serious issues on our campus – student violence, alcohol poisoning, illegal drugs, safety issues, etc. As a Residential Assistant I know that you often have to wait for 5-10 minutes when you need the assistance of a Public Safety officer on Friday and Saturday nights. Here it is time for everybody to decide whether it would be prudent to implement a policy that might elongate this waiting time to 10-15 minutes, only because the Public Safety officers were too busy documenting students that were smoking on the street.

3) Safety Issues.

What alternative are we leaving the smoking community? It is the stated opinion of many people that they will not stop smoking regardless of whether the ban is passed or not. Considering the resoluteness of the smoking community to change their habits, it is important to consider what people might end up doing in order to avoid the restrictions imposed on them. Left with no alternative, a person might decide to smoke in his room. For the purpose he would simply disattach the fire alarm and put towels and duct tape around the door. As far as fire safety is concerned, the above actions create a danger much greater than the danger that second-hand smoking currently poses on this campus. What other alternatives do the people have? Maybe instead of hiding in the room, a person would prefer to go off campus and enjoy a smoke there. It has been the stated policy of WCSA that we should do our best to keep the students on campus in order to ensure their safety. This was precisely the reason why ‘Dan’s Deli’ was allowed to operate within the limits of the campus. However, if by passing the ban we will force a student that was planning on enjoying a few beers on campus to go to the bars simply because once there he can always go out on the street and smoke as much as he wants to, then the student government is clearly contradicting one of its stated purposes. It is the stated goal of WCSA to keep the students safe. This is the very reasoning behind the smoking ban in the first place. However, both of the scenarios described above (hiding in your room; ‘partying’ off campus) actually put students at much greater danger than the danger they are currently facing because of second-hand smoke on the campus. Thus we have to exercise of dose of skepticism when considering the effects the ban.