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Beginning this Fall semester, San Jose City College became a smoke-free campus. Signs were posted everywhere you looked. Emails sent to students and faculty included this qualification: “Smoking is permitted only in the public sidewalks around the perimeter of the campus and on the public streets nearby.”
Almost everyone cheered this healthy and bold stand taken by college officials. The lack of any enforcement, however, has puzzled and frustrated many. One can see smokers puffing away as they pass the no-smoking signs but to a keen observer, it is clear that such sights are becoming rarer as awareness builds.
The facts are stark. Smoking kills over 1,200 Americans everyday, about 450,000 a year. Around the world, the toll exceeds 5.5 million a year. Beyond lives cut short, there are other prices we pay as a society. The annual direct healthcare expense and productivity loss traced to smoking in America are estimated at about $100 billion.
Research has confirmed the risks associated with secondhand smoke, also called passive smoke. The U.S. Environment Protection Agency, for instance, classifies secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen.
That is why it gladdens the hearts of health-conscious students and faculty that San Jose City College and other colleges around the country - about 200 so far - are striving to become smoke-free campuses.
There is also the possibility that some young smokers will give up their lethal habits when prodded by friends and by the silent admonition of those impossible-to-miss smoke-free signs.
In his autobiographical Dreams from My Father, President Barack Obama speaks frankly of his fondness for smoking. Several sentences in the book begin with “I lit a cigarette,” whether describing his experience as a community organizer in Chicago or visiting relatives in Kenya.
But as the president of the United States, Obama can help draw attention to the dangers of smoking. He can say something along these lines to the nation: “Today, as in every day of the year, 4,000 of our kids between the ages of 12 and 17 will start smoking. Worldwide, about 100,000 people start smoking everyday, most of them kids. I myself have been lighting up since my teenage years and have continued to do so for years. I found cigarettes soothing in stressful times, even though I was aware of the damage it was doing to my lungs. Nicotine is intoxicating. It is, as my young friends may say, cool, a mark of social sophistication. But I have a moral responsibility to set an example for you and for people around the world, particularly the young. Therefore, I am giving up smoking for good. No occasional falling off the wagon, no puffing in private. No more smoking, period.”
The effect would be electric. But perhaps this is too far-fetched. So let us for now simply applaud the growing trend of campuses around the country going smoke-free and hope for more awareness to grow.
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