MU forum addresses smoking policy

With the MU Health Care campus smoke-free as of Sept. 1 and the city of Columbia considering a smoking ordinance of its own, the question about how MU students, faculty and staff feel about the university’s smoking policy has arisen.

MU’s Smoking Policy Task Force, which was recently created by Vice Chancellor Jacquelyn Jones to address the question, held a public forum Monday at Memorial Union to begin the evaluation and discussion of the policy, which was introduced in 1988 and revised in 1998.

“It has been almost eight years since the policy has been reviewed,” said Taylor McKinney, a student member of the task force. “With the recent development with the hospital, Vice Chancellor Jones saw this as a good opportunity to look at the campus climate on the smoking policy.”

While the recent ban of smoking in or around hospital facilities has been viewed as progressive, several students raised concerns that the ban causes harm to the campus environment. Rachel Anderson, president of Peers Against Secondhand Smoke, mentioned the organization’s worry that hospital staff members might soon migrate toward campus for their cigarette breaks.

“It’s happening already,” MU freshman Jason Lenhart said. “There is a wall outside Stafford Hall where, every day on my way home from French class, I walk by 12 to 15 hospital staff members smoking. Being allergic to cigarette smoke, it’s never fun coming home.”

Another issue discussed was the possible violation of a student’s right to smoke by banning all tobacco use. Current MU policy prohibits smoking in general access areas, classrooms, conference rooms and auditoriums. Smoking is also prohibited in libraries, gymnasiums, museums, teaching laboratories, public and private offices frequented by nonsmokers, and inside residence halls. The policy encourages each building to have at least one designated smoking area.

“Going smoke-free would be a hassle for student smokers because it would force them to go off-campus, which could be a safety hazard in itself,” said MU student Valeri Van Dyke.

Others said decreasing or eliminating smoking on campus has nothing to do with student rights but everything to do with modern health issues.

“Going smoke-free encourages a lot of people to quit smoking,” said Jayne Bringer, a master’s journalism student at MU and a former smoker.

At the forum, faculty, staff and students were evenly distributed. The majority of attendees were non-smokers.

“Even though there were more people as nonsmokers, many of them were advocating accommodating smokers,” said David Currey, co-chairman of the task force and director of International Student and Scholar Services. “We even had smokers offering options to help students quit smoking.”

The task force plans to hold a forum in October at a different time on a different day of the week to attract more people. It is also developing a survey to be introduced between mid-October and early November to gather more information from those who could not attend the forums. The task force will use this information, combined with information offered by the committee that spearheaded the city’s proposed smoking ordinance, to organize a report for Jones to review.

“The bottom line, for whatever policy, is if the majority of the campus agrees on it,” Currey said. “It will be up to Vice Chancellor Jones as to what administrative decisions will be made from there.”

A copy of the complete MU smoking policy can be found at bppm.missouri.edu/.