???Smokers on campus will take their last after-class puffs at the end of the academic year, as smoking will be completely banned on-campus effective next fall.
???UB will join over 160 other college campuses nationwide in initiating a 100 percent ban on smoking, according to David Dunn, M.D., Ph.D. vice president of Health Sciences. It is the first state university in Western New York to enact such a ban.
???"We thought that it would be a great initiative for the community," said Helen Cappuccino, clinical assistant professor, surgeon at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and UB alumna.
???A committee comprised of various members of the UB community including Dunn, Cappuccino, and Gary Giovino, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Health Behavior, made the final decision.
???"I was actually approached by two students who were appalled that we weren't completely smoke-free," Giovino said. "Their very passionate appeal motivated me, a very busy professor, to really engage on the issue."
???Giovino stated that approximately 18 percent of students currently smoke.
???According the Dunn, one of the main reasons for the implementation of the policy deals with the health of the majority non-smokers in the UB community.
???"Analysis of the data reveals that the contention that smoking or not smoking is a personal health choice is not correct," Dunn said. "In fact there is a wealth of literature ... about passive smoking and the fact that if we take folks who are really in a minority here ... they're influencing the other 82 percent."
???Giovino cited data that showed cigarettes contain 172 toxic substances, 33 hazardous airborne substances, 47 hazardous waste substances, and 67 human or animal carcinogens.
???"If you smell tobacco smoke you are breathing cancer-causing chemicals," Giovino said.
???Cappuccino stated that the smoking ban also targets would-be smokers, people who begin smoking during college.
???"[Tobacco companies] really target youth from the 15 to 25 age group," Cappuccino said. "Many young people start smoking at that age so our hope is that we can intervene before they are tempted to do that on campus."
???Giovino also hopes the ban will help give current smokers an opportunity to quit.
???"Part of the message is when smoking is not normative then the cues to smoke are far less and smoking will be far less normative on this campus," Giovino said. "Twenty years ago, we used to say that quitting smoking is like an alcoholic trying to quit in a bar, everyone was smoking."
???According to Cappuccino, UB will provide several free options to help students quit smoking, including nicotine replacement products and counseling.
???"Ninety percent of smokers regret starting smoking in the first place, most want to quit and most have tried to quit in the past year," Giovino said. "In most young people quit attempts are actually much higher, something like 60 percent in any given year."
???The ban is primarily a teaching opportunity, according to Cappuccino.
???"The message of this whole thing is we want to help people to quit," Cappuccino said. "We want to be educational, not punitive."
???The committee has not yet decided on any disciplinary action to take in the event that a student is caught smoking, but emphasized that enforcement is not a main premise in the plan.
???"When we are dealing with a small subset of the population we want to enact policies that are helpful in the beginning," Dunn said. "There is going to be so much peer pressure [on smokers] but we are not going to start with strong enforcement."
???Cappuccino added that any enforcement would be directed at common smoking areas on-campus, rather than specific individuals.
???Giovino also hopes that the smoking ban will improve the cleanliness of the campus.
???"Cigarettes are the biggest source of litter on-campus," Giovino said. "We feel this is an integral part of [the UB environmental plan]."
???Campus smokers were unhappy with the news.
???"It's my stress reliever," said Kaili Mutka, a junior political science major. "And it's going to be hard to enforce."
???Other students were comparatively upset but could not cite a particular reason.
???"I strongly disagree with this plan," said Austin Lee, a junior biomedical science major. "I am a smoker and I want to smoke."
???Still, Dunn believed that the ban could only benefit the campus.
???"I'd like to see people come back for reunions and, rather than talk about friends who died of lung cancer, have the ability to actually talk to them," Dunn said.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
