Share & Voice: UMD Smoking Ban Forum

On Tuesday October 27, I attended UMD's Smoking Ban Policy Forum. I was very surprised by the amount of people that showed up, there were much fewer people than I expected. There were representatives from student organizations, American Lung Association, UMD police department, health services, faculty, and the student body.

I am in favor of the current smoking ban on the UMD campus. I personally do not think shelters will help anything. I think that there needs to be some kind of fine set up for students caught smoking on campus grounds. I know it will cost money to implement this change but I would rather have my money (if it is going to come from tuition) go to paying a person to ticket people rather than to shelters for people to smoke.

It was brought up at the forum that it is peoples right to smoke, I agree with this but it is also my right not to smoke and not have to inhale second hand smoke every time I want to walk into a building. There were people at the forum who brought up interesting points like how it is becoming a social change, you can no longer smoke near hospitals, on airplanes, in MN in public establishments, and now moving to Universities. There were others there who clearly smoked and voiced their opinions, which at times did not make much sense and almost seemed to contradict what they were saying. It was also brought up that as incoming freshman see that you are not allowed to smoke on campus, it will help to change UMD to a smoke free campus (as long as people obey the rule and are not smoking on campus). I think this it is going to take a few years to see a change with this smoking ban. I hope that UMD moves forward in this ban and no backwards.

Oh and the American Lung Association handed out free t-shirts that said, "I am a designated no smoking area." Very clever.