As school starts up and the stress levels hit, the cigarettes come out – all we can hear in our heads is our mothers yelling at us saying how horrible they are and to never smoke. With that voice in our head, what is it that keeps us standing at the entrance of Miller and Leinhard puffing up?
Senior business management major Laeh Yang-DiPietro, speaking on her own smoking history, said, “ I bought my first pack of cigarettes my senior year of high school and have tried to quit so many times but the longest I’ve gone without a smoke is 16 days. My mom knows I smoke and now she smokes, too, so she doesn’t say anything. She knows I’m an adult and can make my own decisions but if my dad knew he’d kill me.”
Cigarette addictions are just as bad as that of any illegal drug. It’s the substance of nicotine that causes users to keep grabbing a pack at the store. Nicotine is a psychoactive chemical that is found in tobacco that can keep a user on cigarettes for years. About half of cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related disease and lose on average 14 years of life.
The use of cigarettes dates back to the Mayans and Aztecs but came popular in the 1830s when the French began to mass-produce. When originally made, they where not meant to be inhaled. They were supposed to be treated as cigars or pipes. German doctors found the first link between smoking and lung cancer during the Nazi-era in Germany, and it led the first anti- tobacco movement.
Since then the research has grown and traced the links between smoking to several other health issues such as throat cancer, asthma, emphysema, birth defects in children born to smoking mothers, as well as poisoning the body due to release of radium, even after someone quits smoking.
However, along with the research that has grown, so has the amount of smokers in our country. Each state now has certain bans on public areas and buildings in which you are allowed to smoke in or around. In the state of New York, bans were passed on smoking in all public restaurants, bars, and parks. As of May 23, 2011, those who are in the city and trying to light up in a highly-populated place have been hit with fines for each cigarette that they choose to light up. The law, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed in Feb. after it was passed by the New York City Council, has made smoking illegal in the city’s 1,700 parks and on the city’s 14 miles of public beaches.
Smoking will also be prohibited in pedestrian plazas like Times Square.
When interviewed by the New York Times on the smoking ban placed in the city, one woman stated how much of a pain it is that she now has to take an elevator down 11 stories then walk almost two blocks to take a cigarette break with the pass of the ban, instead of just stepping outside her building.
Another woman responded how grateful she was that the ban had ensured the local parks were now going to be smoke free. “I have three small children and living in the city is already enough bad air without the help of others blowing smoke in our faces.”
What about Pace? Do we have rules against smoking? Are they effective? The University Student Handbook states the following:
“Smoking is not permitted in any building, shelter, indoor and outdoor athletic facility, indoor and outdoor seating area including and not limited to athletic fields, at open-air presentations or performances, outdoor dining areas, and University owned or operated transportation. Pace University prohibits smoking or carrying of any ignited tobacco containing products, within a 50 foot perimeter, to all facilities owned, operated or leased by Pace University, at any University-sponsored event or program, or in any vehicle owned, operated or leased by Pace University.”
What does all that tell us? No smoking in the dorms, no smoking inside of the classroom buildings or Kessel, and you must be within 50 ft of any of these to light up.
“The 50-feet rule should be better enforced in front of the classroom buildings as well as up at the townhouses,” said senior education major Christine Causa.
Another senior that wishes to remain anonymous states, “I understand why the rules are there and I respect them, especially at a place like Miller where it is very busy, but when it rains there is no place for us to go. I will definitely walk away when it’s nice out, though.”
Law student Oni Mamo takes on the personal view that the ban shouldn’t be in place.
“Smoking is legal; I should be allowed to do it where I want. If someone doesn’t like it they don’t have to stand near me,” said Mamo.
What are we as a student body to do? While we need to follow the rules that we agreed to when coming to the school, students like Mamo state that if Pace were to bring back smoking sections or place in separate benches and awnings for smokers, the rule wouldn’t have to be enforced anymore than it already is now.
“It isn’t like we are purposefully blowing smoke in peoples faces, we just don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Mamo.
Until Pace takes the time and effort to make smoking sections, it will continue to be a pain to all students – to those who are smokers and need their nicotine hit before going into that three-hour class, and to the students who have to walk past those enjoying their cigarettes.