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Freshman legislator Zach Cohen, far right, sponsored the smoking bill the SGA voted down last night.
The SGA rejected a resolution that would have increased the distance people must stand from buildings while smoking at a meeting last night.
This bill comes at a time when the University Senate is reviewing a campus-wide smoking ban, which would completely eliminate the need for a non-smoking radius.
The nearly 30-minute debate surrounding the issue turned to ways to improve enforcement of the existing 15-foot policy before increasing the no-smoke zone to 25 feet around building entrances and windows. The issue culminated in a 19-11 vote in which Student Government Association legislators showed a sweeping preference for focusing on the policy at hand before recommending an amendment.
“People aren’t following the policy that exists,” South Hill legislator Kevin Ford said. “What I’m wondering is, why should we expand the provisions of a failing policy? It’s like promoting someone who isn’t doing their job.”
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Towson University has implemented a campuswide smoking ban, becoming the first four-year college or university in Maryland to prohibit smoking.
The university announced the policy Wednesday. It will go into effect Aug. 1.
University spokeswoman Marina Cooper said the policy states that anyone who violates the regulations will be "subject to fines and sanctions." The policy also states that visitors refusing to comply may be denied access to the school's campuses and possibly even arrested for "criminal trespass."
Smoking, which is already banned inside university buildings, will be prohibited outdoors on the 328-acre campus. The policy bans people from smoking anywhere on campus grounds, including parking lots, garages, and sidewalks. Towson University has about 21,000 students. . . .
Banning smoking on college campuses is a trend. According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, 365 U.S. campuses that have enacted smoke-free campus policies.
"We're seeing a social norm change," said Annie Tegen, senior program manager for the foundation. "There's a new generation of students unwilling to be exposed to secondhand smoke."
Towson University will be a smoke-free campus, it announced Wednesday, becoming Maryland's first four-year college to ban an activity once as commonplace as lounging on the quad.
The reason for the policy, which goes into effect in August, is simple, administrators said: They want to reduce health risks from smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke.
"I don't try to guide people in how they live their lives, but I am going to protect the campus so it's clean and pleasant for as many people as possible," said Towson President Robert L. Caret.
Smoking is already banned in campus buildings at Towson, but under the new rules, it will be off-limits on the grounds: on sidewalks, in garages and parking lots, and even outside the bar at Bill Bateman's Bistro.
Towson joins a rapidly growing list of U.S. colleges
When Rajiv Ulpe, a public and community health master's student, asked students to compare hookah to cigarettes Friday afternoon at a lecture on the campus, most attendees agreed hookah was a much healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes. . . .
But Ulpe said these are all common myths associated with hookah -- a water pipe used to smoke tobacco through cooled water -- adding that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a typical hour-long hookah smoking session involves inhaling 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled in a single cigarette.
During the discussion, nine undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 22 were asked to discuss their attitudes toward hookah and what exactly they know about its effects.
"Hookah is more natural than cigarettes and you smoke hookah less than cigarettes," Patcella said.
Ulpe and Public and Community Health professor Nancy Atkinson held the event to learn about students' knowledge, attitudes and myths surrounding hookah use. The consensus of the group was that most students do not know the consequences of smoking hookah because it is not a prevalent discussion.
Throughout the event, Ulpe targeted the common myths surrounding the practice, asking students if they thought they were true. Many students said they thought because hookah smoke is filtered through water, it filters out harmful ingredients. They also said they thought smoking hookah is less addictive than smoking cigarettes.
According to a University Health Center fact sheet, however, these beliefs aren't true: The water does not filter out cancer-causing chemicals, and hookah smoke can damage the lungs and heart just as much as cigarette smoke. Shisha, the moist and sticky tobacco smoked in hookah, contains nicotine and is just as addicting as cigarettes.
Maryland tobacco farmers won't receive about $13 million in payments from cigarette manufacturers under a ruling Friday from the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Officials with the Maryland Department of Agriculture said the state had sought to require that Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. honor an agreement to compensate farmers for the declining sales of tobacco expected from a settlement between the tobacco industry and states over the health care costs of smoking.
"Our farmers have been done a big injustice," said Patrick McMillan, assistant agriculture secretary. "The source of income they were led to believe they were going to get has been taken away from them."
The case stemmed from a disagreement over whether the manufacturers were obligated to continue paying farmers under that agreement after Congress approved in 2004 a $10 billion buyout for tobacco farmers nationally, to be financed by taxing the cigarette industry.
On Tuesday, the Student Government Association (SGA) considered a resolution on the policies proposed by Hopkins Kicks Butts that would restrict smoking on campus.
The resolution concluded that while the SGA supports efforts to promote the hazards of secondhand smoke, evidence on how these proposals would provide positive health benefits needs to be provided.
Part of the Hopkins Kicks Butts (HKB) proposal would implement a campus-wide ban on tobacco products, which would be enforced by peer-policing and a $15 ban per violation. The student organization has also called for smoking to be restricted to 50-foot zones.
"The public health objective says that smoking is harmful. What [this group] proposed is not practical," freshman class president Wyatt Larkin said.
He suggested that policymakers should determine if smoking is a threat to student health, rather than relying on the claims made by the HKB Web site, which Larkin said, "don't really add up." . . .
The SGA concluded the meeting with a motion to table the proposal until next week's meeting, which is scheduled to be in Mason Hall at 7 p.m.
SGA finally returned from its fall recess this week to debate the Hopkins Kicks Butts (HKB) proposal to ban smoking on campus . . . Wait, was it not in recess? Has it been meeting all year? . . .
Still, after this page published a condemnation of the attempted campus-wide smoking ban by HKB last week, it was nice to see a resolution debated, even if it was tabled, at this week's SGA meeting.
Unfortunately, the response came a little late to save some Hopkins events, such as Hookah and Hemp on the Beach. Their currently unpassed resolution states that "the SGA is also strongly opposed to the imposition of a fine on smoking and a ban on events that promote tobacco" citing the limiting of the "expression of rights" of other student groups as reason for their lack of support for the HKB proposal. Too little, too late.
Had SGA been more decisive at an earlier date, perhaps this event would have been saved. Instead HKB has been allowed to speak on behalf of students without an opposition voice until last week's editorial.
Hopkins Kicks Butts has been doing a lot of kicking lately. . . .
Do I think HKB is a terrorist organization? No. On the contrary, I support the majority of their actions. In fact, I believe much of what the do is laudable. Their focus on helping people quit and doing community outreach programs that try to keep kids from smoking is commendable. And I agree that students shouldn't smoke directly outside of campus buildings and they should be compassionate towards their non-smoking peers. But this is going too far. Students shouldn't be allowed to smoke indoors. But outside? Come on. Why not just send all the smokers to Gulags? . . .
If this ban goes through I will take up smoking. I will sit on The Beach and smoke. I will stand outside of the lecture halls and smoke. I will stand outside Levering and smoke. And I will not pay a single fine. I don't want to do this, but I will not sit idly by and allow you to harass these students. HKB, my life is in your hands. Do what you think is right.
Homewood is moving closer to becoming a smoke-free campus, thanks to the efforts of one student group.
Hopkins Kicks Butt (HKB) is currently attempting to convince administrators to institute a campus-wide smoking ban. Their proposal calls for a $15 fine for people caught smoking on campus.
HKB hopes to make the University completely smoke free by 2012.
The group, which is part of the Center for Health Education and Wellness (CHEW), has been gathering signatures for roughly two years, although according to group President Sarah Durica, they have "only spent about 20 hours actually tabling and getting people to sign up."
"Our primary motivation for establishing a smoke-free campus is to reduce the community's exposure to harmful secondhand smoke," HKB said in the proposal it submitted to the administration about a year ago. . . .
HKB feels that tobacco is a serious problem at Hopkins.
"The smoking problems here at Hopkins is pretty potent . . . We have letters [of complaint] from students in different housing complexes, particularly in the AMRs . . . it's a major problem definitely," Preston Kramer, HKB's Policy Chair, said.
Hopkins Kicks Butt is involved in several other campaigns beside its effort to get a campus-wide smoking ban instituted.
Earlier this year, the Baltimore County Health Department dispatched two 18-year-old police cadets to 80 local stores where cigarettes are sold. Want to guess how often the teenagers were asked to show some form of identification?
A miserable four out of 10 times.
When county officials surveyed stores close to county middle and high schools, the results weren't much better . . .
If Baltimore County wants to get serious about protecting its teens, the council will not only pass a mandatory ID regulation that meets or exceeds FDA standards, it will instruct county health officials to start enforcing existing law more aggressively. Instead of sending 18-year-olds to buy a pack of cigarettes from a local store, the county should dispatch actual minors - and issues fines to stores that sell to them.
That's what other Maryland counties do. Baltimore County may be the only jurisdiction that conducts pain-free "stings," a concession to the retail community that avoids $300 fines but which fails to adequately protect the county's youth.
On October 5, the Baltimore City Council moved two tobacco-related bills a step closer toward passage into law.
One bill would ban the sale of flavored wrapping paper for tobacco products, while the other would ban the sale of individual cigars.
The Institute for Global Tobacco Control (IGTC) at the Bloomberg School of Public Health helped collect some of the data that led to the creation of the bills, according to Doctor Frances Stillman, co-director of the IGTC.
"What we see in inner city African American populations is high rates of smoking. They don't smoke many cigarettes or cigars a day, so these individual cigarettes and cigars is a good way for them to get their nicotine dose," Stillman said.
"The flavored paper is especially attractive to youths and young adults, making it more appealing for kids to starts and young adults to keep smoking."
"Both [bills] are trying to wean youths from being enticed into smoking and flavored tobacco is trying to entice kids to smoke and kids can afford to buy individual cigarettes and cigars better than a pack," said city councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, who represents Hopkins's district and who co-sponsored both bills.
The Baltimore County Council has deferred a proposal that would require retailers of tobacco products to ask for proof of age from "anyone who looks to be 26 or younger."
The legislation was written to make it easier for police officers to enforce the county's ban on distribution of tobacco products to those under the age of 18.
"It automatically says a retailer needs to card, and it will help us reduce teenage smoking," said Don Mohler, county spokesman.
But several council members said the regulation put too great an onus on retailers.
"If the buyer is of legal age, is the seller breaking the law by not asking for proof of age?" asked Councilman John Olszewski.
I am writing to thank The Sun for the excellent editorial "Addicted at an Early Age" (Sept. 24) and to clarify a few points. First, while it is a good move for public health for the Food and Drug Administration to ban flavored cigarettes, The Sun is correct to point out that this ban does not include the extremely popular cheap cigars that come in a variety of enticing flavors and are available by the single for less than $1. Nor does the ban include smokeless tobacco products that also come in fruity flavors attractive to kids. Although Congress did not issue such a mandate for cigars and smokeless tobacco, the FDA should swiftly exercise its regulatory power to extend the flavored ban to cigars and smokeless tobacco. . . .
And as I express my support for the city bill, I also promise to re-introduce the cigar minimum packaging bill in the General Assembly in 2010 so that we can impose this common sense public health measure across the state. Our children's health is worth at least that much!
The Baltimore City Council is considering restricting where people smoke and how they buy tobacco.
Suzanne Collins explains two bills debated Tuesday are aimed at preventing young people from smoking.
The bills' sponsors say flavored cigars and flavored cigarette papers are enticing to young people who get addicted to tobacco.
On Wednesday evening, the student organization Hopkins Kicks Butts met to discuss its proposal that the University move ashtrays away from the doorways of campus buildings in order to prevent secondhand smoke from overwhelming students on their way to classes . . .
As a private university, Hopkins certainly has the right to ban smoking on campus. But perhaps we do not need to go that far just yet.
Smokers: The News-Letter will continue to support your right to smoke on campus. In exchange, please respect the rights of non-smokers.
Why don't you voluntarily move away from the doorways while smoking? Standing there and allowing smoke to enter campus buildings and the lungs of your non-smoking peers will only ignite tensions that will ultimately result in a campus-wide ban.
And hey, while you're at it, try to quit.