OXFORD,Miss. – Nearly two years after adopting a policy that limits tobacco
use to designated outdoor areas of campus, the University of
Mississippi plans to more strictly enforce the rules, which are
designed to protect the health of all students, employees and visitors
and maintain the appearance of the campus.
Starting Wednesday
(April 1), University Police officers will hand out warning cards to
people they observe using tobacco products outside the designated
areas. The cards list campus and Mississippi Department of Health
resources for those who want to quit smoking.
After a two-week
grace period, officers will begin writing tickets for violations of the
policy. The tickets carry a $25 fine, which will be billed to students’
bursar accounts or deducted from payroll for UM faculty and staff
members.
“We’ve learned the hard way that some individuals will not comply without an enforcement mechanism in place,” said Donna Gurley, associate university attorney. “On the other hand, we hope to make compliance easier by adding some designated areas.”
Smoking is prohibited in all campus buildings. The university’s tobacco-use areas are identified by green trash receptacles with an ashtray on top. Many are in parking lots, away from campus buildings and heavily traveled sidewalks.
Any use of tobacco products – including cigarettes, cigars, pipes or chewing tobacco – outside a designated area violates the policy.
In response to complaints that some areas of campus did not have smoking areas, about a dozen new locations have been added to the designated smoking areas set up in September 2007, when the campus tobacco policy was implemented. Campus maps showing all designated tobacco-use areas will be available in the Student Union, Martindale Hall, Lyceum and other key campus locations. The map is also available at http://www.olemiss.edu/tobaccomap .
Since the policy was announced, smokers have continued to congregate outside designated smoking areas in some parts of campus, particularly near the J.D. Williams Library. This can create health risks for people with certain medical conditions, said Tom Lombardo, UM associate professor of psychology and director of the ACT Now Tobacco Quit Program, http://www.olemiss.edu/orgs/actnow/ .
“There are no known safe levels of second-hand smoke,” Lombardo said. “Just as smoking a few cigarettes a week can increase the risk of the same health problems that come from smoking a pack a day. Even brief exposure to second-hand smoke can almost certainly increase health risks, particularly in susceptible people.
“For a sensitive asthmatic or an angina patient, even a brief exposure to smoke could trigger an attack.”
Restricting tobacco use on campus also may help reduce the number of new smokers, he said.
“About 10 percent of student smokers pick up the habit at school, based on national statistics,” he explained. “They’re more likely to start smoking if they see others smoking, so if we can reduce the number of people smoking on campus, maybe we can prevent some students from starting.”
The effort to restrict smoking on campus reflects national and regional trends, Gurley said. Several other Southeastern Conference institutions restrict tobacco use on their campuses, and the University of Arkansas became one of the country’s first major universities to be completely smoke-free when it banned all tobacco use on campus July 1, 2008.
View the university’s official policies concerning tobacco use.