According to sources within Student Government, SG and AU administrators are seriously considering a campus-wide smoking ban.
The Eagle opposes this ban on principle and urges both parties to consider simple alternatives already in effect.
The justification for a smoking ban is not at all clear. If it is a sustainability issue, we fail to see the impetus behind an absolute measure. Smoking has a negligible effect on air quality, and it is not as though students who smoke are engaging in disruptive behavior.
If the administration believes smoking negatively affects the school’s image, we disagree; in fact, allowing smoking may attract students who enjoy a campus that respects their lifestyle choices.
A larger issue, however, is the precedent of paternalism that such a ban sets.
Unlike alcohol, which is illegal for most students who live on campus, smoking is legal. By banning cigarettes, the University is actively attempting to regulate a legal activity and overstepping its bounds. Such a ban assumes that AU students cannot be trusted to make autonomous lifestyle decisions or are not cognizant of the negative effects of smoking.
We believe a campus-wide smoking ban would be at best impractical to enforce and at worst absurd.
Does the administration intend to send yellow-vested Public Safety officers on Segways out to chase cigarette-wielding students across Nebraska or Massachusetts Avenues or into the surrounding neighborhoods? Would they remove smoking poles, forcing students to throw their cigarette butts onto the ground? And where would the ban apply – could smokers use the parking lots or would they be forced to leave AU property completely?
Any option would increase tension with local residents.
The University’s relationship with the surrounding area is cordial at best. Pushing smokers off campus would simply give neighborhood leaders another issue to complain about and another opportunity for hostility. A Fox 5 story promo would be written within hours of the ban’s passage.
The Eagle encourages the University to instead consider regularly enforcing a D.C. ordinance already in place that allows businesses to ban smoking within 25 of their outer walls. This way, those who feel campus secondhand smoke is bothersome could avoid it, and smokers would still be able to smoke as they please.
The University would attempt to regulate the legal behavior of its students but instead utilizing existing laws. In doing so, the University would respect students’ autonomy and intelligence.
We hope that student leaders and administration officials alike will reconsider this paternal, unjustified and impractical ban and instead consider regularly enforcing existing guidelines. ? E
