By SARAH RABINOW
Contributing Writer
Published on September 13, 2011
Buying a girly magazine is something I rarely do. Looking through the pages, I couldn’t help notice a coupon for a pack of cigarettes along with an ad with a plethora of models, whose physical appearance resembled little girls instead of grown women, which the magazine topics are supposedly geared toward. Knowing full well the risks of smoking, having gone through several health classes and having had a mother who was persistent about its hazardous affects, since herself having been a chain smoker since she was 13 before quitting cold when she got pregnant with my sister, I have managed to remain a non-smoker. This ad in a magazine that would go out to influence a ton of teenagers, might not prompt them to buy cigarettes; but it would, however, influence their feelings about smoking. It was this inconsequential event that got me thinking about how our society views smoking a week before the new policy banning smoking on campus, starting in January 2012, was issued.
While I think the whole of our society knows about the dangers of smoking, the commonality of people participating in it or knowing those who do has made us numb to how people’s choice to smoke affects our health on a daily basis. It is rare that the choices we make solely affect ourselves, so I am glad that the administration of Saint Rose has decided to join the many other schools across the nation in becoming a tobacco-free campus. However, both New York State and federal laws already prohibit schools, private or public, from having smoking in and around facilities owned or leased by them. This makes me wonder why so many schools have allowed smoking by students, as well as employees, on New York campuses for so long. I wonder, is it because they don’t want to deter smoking students from applying? Maybe it is the same fact that smokers and images of smoking are everywhere, not just in schools, that makes enforcing the law seem likely to have little effect; however I do not believe any of this is justification for why schools have not held up the law and protected their students through preventing secondhand smoke and aiding those who wish to quit.
What is the point of having laws, or in this case having schools make tobacco-free policies, if they aren’t going to be enforced to help foster a better learning community as well as a better quality of life for people in general? There is no question in my mind that you should do to your body whatever you like. I am all for individual rights, but we must always remember that our actions, no matter how small an impact it may have on others, is the beauty and the trouble with the human race.
I have mixed feelings about the new tobacco-free campus policy. Why don’t we just enforce the laws that are already in existence? Not to mention I am curious to see how effective they will choose to make it, what the consequences will be if it is not followed and the impact that it will have on the employees and faculty that continue to work here, as well as the students who choose to come to The College of Saint Rose.
