It’s not uncommon to see a small group of University of Idaho students sitting on the Administration lawn puffing cigarettes, or a classmate with chewing tobacco tucked under their bottom-lip… for now.
The UI Tobacco Task Force officially recommended the implementation of a tobacco-free campus policy to go into effect Aug. 24, 2015, allowing 15 months to implement.
The anticipated change in the smoking policy would prohibit the use of cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, chew, pipes, hookahs, cigars, snuff, snus, water pipes and any other tobacco product on UI property.
The proposal does not come from ASUI, faculty senate, staff affairs or the president — the suggestion comes from a task force comprised of representatives across the campus community which include students, staff and faculty. The task force is a result of a class project that incorporated student participation, and an ASUI resolution that asked for a second look at the policy.
Interim Health Education Coordinator Daniel Trautvetter is a member of the task force and said careful deliberation took place for months regarding the current smoking policy before making the decision to head in the tobacco-free direction.
“We collectively decided that it is in the best interest of the entire university community — students, staff, faculty, visitors — to go with 100 percent tobacco-free,” Trautvetter said. “It sends an overall message of wellness. It says that we’re looking after everyone, not just the nonsmokers.”
The current smoking policy states smoking is permitted on campus but prohibited within 25 feet of UI buildings and building doorways. ASUI Director of Health and Wellness John Nuhn said the existing policy is flawed.
“The current policy, whether enforced or not, has been a problem,” Nuhn said. “The current policy of 25 feet away from the doorways, a lot of that enforcement has been on maybe people walking by, and so it’s tough to walk around with a tape measurer and measure ‘hey, this is within 25 feet of the door, you need to be further away’ or to tell somebody “Hey, I understand you’re standing under this ease where it’s dry and it’s snowing out there, but you need to go 25 feet away to smoke.'”
After the task force concluded that a change needed to be made, discussion started about designated smoking areas, a smoke-free direction and a tobacco-free policy.
Patricia Hartzell, chair of faculty senate and member of the task force, said designated smoking areas were ruled out because there was concerns of heavy concentrations of smoke creating adverse health affects and the separation of students could potentially establish social divides.
“Designated smoking areas are not good,” Hartzell said. “It sends the wrong message. It condones the use of tobacco products and smoking, and also it sends everyone to a designated area and in a way it might become a fashionable thing, or it might become a status symbol to go to an area and we didn’t want to encourage that either.”
When it came to whether a smoke-free or tobacco-free course should be pursued, the task force concluded a smoke-free policy would only look out for secondhand smoke hazards and a tobacco-free policy would improve the safety and health of the entire campus — they chose the latter.
Trautvetter said he was a part of the class project that got the smoking discussion started a few semesters ago and has since seen many other colleges and universities adopt smoke-free or tobacco-free policies.
“As of January of this year, 811 were completely tobacco-free and over 1,100 were completely smoke-free,” Trautvetter said. “So it’s kind of the trend that sweeping the nation. WSU is going tobacco-free August 2015 — that’s their plan.”
While some students may be against the idea of a full tobacco-ban, members of the task force also recognize the policy — if approved — might be unpopular with some.
ASUI Vice President-elect Sarah Vetsmany said she recognizes the issues that smoking on campus cause, but doesn’t think it’s nearly as big of an issue as some make it out to be and is hesitant to support a tobacco ban.
Hartzell said another matter that the task force has been confronted with is how current smokers are going to handle a new policy.
“One person was concerned that maybe there would be people who could be negatively impacted because it would be harder for them to go and have a cigarette,” Vetsmany said. “For example and with that we responded we would help them work with cessation and make it better.”
Idaho Public Health’s Health Promotion Coordinator Heidi Henson said current tobacco users will receive many cessation resources and UI will receive free “tobacco-free” signs for the campus.
Currently, the task force is trying to get the policy change to take place in the Administrative Procedures Manual — which requires presidential approval. Brian Mahoney, chair of staff affairs and member of the task force, said they are trying to get the verbiage changed in the APM to state its intention of the August 2015 goal.
“Basically we can make recommendations to the APM,” Mahoney said. “We check that document out and make changes to it, but ultimately it’s something that has to be approved by the president. It goes through faculty senate, it goes through staff affairs as more of an FYI — and ASUI as well — but the approving authority of that is the president.”
After meeting with the president’s cabinet on Tuesday, Hartzell said President Chuck Staben responded to the proposal positively but has not officially endorsed the tobacco ban.
“We kind of get the impression that he is,” Hartzell said. “He sent an email to me recently and thanked us for taking the lead on this — but in fact it’s not really faculty senate, but staff, students and faculty have been working together on this. We had a meeting (Tuesday) and I think my impression was that they were generally supportive.”
Amber Emery can be reached at [email protected]