UM to Implement Campus-Wide Smoking Ban
Just featured on local news (web link) - would be a voluntary ban with no enforceability (meaning campus police wouldn't have fines to implement).
First school to attempt/execute it in the state
Have a campus of dippers.
Let us fill the side walks with spit and fill garabge cans with bottled brown water!
I would have thought Bucknuts would have given Denard credit. After all, he did self-report the violations after he was caught by DPS.
I heard that Terrelle traded autographs for Skoal . . . .
I can understand banning smoking inside University buildings (don't get me started on the state smoking ban) but seriously?
It's basically an attempt to create a social norm. They're hoping the existence of a rule will be enough pressure to reduce the number of lit cigarettes on campus at any time.
And it will TOTALLY succeed. Smokers are nothing if not completely rational about tobacco use.
there is nothing rational about not being able to smoke during tailgating, or not being able smoke outside at all for that matter. If you can't smoke on lots used for tailgating, lets go ahead and rule out barbeques as well. As a smoker myself, I've never felt comfortable about smoking inside and subjecting others to my second hand smoke. I've happily smoked outside of even my own house and car. But when you start limiting the ability of people to be able to smoke outside, you are very much vaulting across the line of reason. Illegalize smoking altogether already and put us smokers out of our misery rather than alienating us by pussyfooting around with these illogical laws.
Speaking of tailgating...
They shall take my game day Cohiba from my cold dead hand.
Really. I do.
I know; in the past, when I have smoked, I have been out on the golf course, not bothering anybody else. It's the only place, and the only time, that I ever light up anything that is not a barbecue grill. And nobody is exposed to my second-hand smoke.
So I promise; I am going to be fully, 100% supportive of the new smoking ban. Really, I am. Yay, Regents. Go Blue.
Whether you agree with it or not the university has every right to implement this on campus, if it bothers you so much than you can tailgate not on university property. I am not sure I agree with the ban but I sure as hell know that I'll be glad to not be smelling your second hand smoke on my way to the stadium.
I never said I deny they're authority to do this, I just question whether they are going to far by doing it. When a rule alienates 1 out of every 6 people who are doing something quite legal, it must be questioned. Also, you'll unfortunately still smell my second hand smoke on your way in because the sidewalks around the stadium belong to the City of Ann Arbor and I most certainly will be smoking there.
This is more of an attempt to curb smoking outside of public buildings (like outside the library) where smokers congregate and non-smokers are forced to walk through clouds of smoke.
And in Ann Arbor the number of smokers is certainly less that 1 in 6.
Good point. That's probably their main motivation with the positive side effect of people not have to deal with smoke while waiting for the bus.
Not to be a dick, but I have no patience for smokers. I hope they finally raise taxes enough so that they price out smoking completely. The day I could go to Grizzly Peak without having to wash my clothes twice was like a national holiday. If I could then avoid walking through the hurd of smokers outside the door, I'd be pretty happy and a little safer.
I am not a smoker, but it pisses me off when others like to call on the government to select a minority group of individuals and tax them just because you don't like their choices. I hate motorcycles, with a passion, so I should be calling on the government to tax bikes at 400% of their value just cause I don't like them?
You'll say the issue is that we have to pay for their care when they get cancer, and I agree that we should NOT be paying for their decisions. But the problem here is that each individual should pay for their actions (private insurance) rather than banning the smokers and their free will.
Yeah, but motorcycles don't directly harm or affect me. Smokers do. It's not like I'm saying "tax someone because I don't like the way they dress."
How do smokers harm you? Don't like a bar that allows smoking? Don't go. Don't spend time with smokers in enclosed places. You're not getting lung cancer if you pass by some smoke a couple times a month walking outdoors.
The sheer presence of smokers effects anyone in their near vicinity. There is no other human activity that directly harms others through second hand effects. The day smoking is made illegal in this country would be one of the best days ever.
This is where the disconnect between smokers and non smokers intesify. Non smokers confuse the mild annoyance of smelling smoke nearby or walking into a cloud of smoke with what is in fact dangerous levels of secondhand smoke. Do you realize how much secondhand smoke you need to be subjected to for it to start to cause the smallest of health issues? These reports that attempt to prove the dangers of secondhand smoke are as much propaganda as the reports by big tobacco refuting the dangers of smoking. A person would have to be trapped in a near air tight room in close proximity of multiple heavy smokers on a regular basis for an extended period of time for someone to experience these negative of effects proximity smoking, Your over exaggerations of how smoking effects you personally is hyperbolically ridiculous. I do apologize that my smoking annoys you, and I will make sure I'm reasonably distanced downwind from people as I smoke. But for the love of having any ounce of reason in your body on this topic, do some research and realize if you do run into a smoker who's not as polite as me about it and you get some smoke in your face, its not affecting you a single iota health wise. Annoyance, yes, health risk, not really.
then alcohol should definitely be made illegal as well. The negative impacts of alcohol use on individual health, society and families far outweigh that of cigarettes/cigars and second-hand smoke. And that's not even close to being a debate. It just bothers me that people will rally around alcohol use (weekend drinking thread anyone?), but God forbid they see or smell someone else's smoke. I happily engage in those drinking threads but I also don't whine if I smell cigarette smoke.
A little perspective...
I agree that a private institution has the right to do this if it thinks it is in their own benefit. The problem is that Michigan is a public school for which we pay taxes to support.
On campus? I'd have guessed you tailgated on or near University property but if you're doing beer bongs on the South Quad lawn, you're a step up in my book
"U-M police officers won't be issuing tickets, school officials said. Instead, employees and students would be subjected to disciplinary procedures already in place.
For U-M employees, it might amount to a workplace violation.
For students, it could include taking part in a resolution process involving the offended party who reported the smoking violation. It's possible, but not at all likely, that repeated and flagrant violations would result in disenrollment, the university said."
If I was 18 and knew the complaining party would be forced to workshop with me on our conflict, I'd probably START smoking. I know we are a liberal college but holy sauce
Well it's pretty strictly enforced on the Medical Campus. We'd had a campus wide ban for years. DPS sweeps the standard smoking spots pretty regularly and ha sin some cases issued fines to repeat offenders. I have no idea how it works on Central.
Maybe it is just an excuse to remove those cig butt holders and save on having to clean and replace them.
The most important question...how will this affect the Hash Bash?
Marijuana is as illegal now as it was last week.
This is interesting for a campus like ours, that is so integrated into its city. In some places it's blurry where the campus ends and the rest of Ann Arbor begins.
Start at the Diag, and walk in any direction. When you reach a place where you can buy a piece of shitty pizza at 2 in the morning, you're off campus.
Okay then, mark off a spot 20x20 as soon as the campus ends and directly beside said pizza place...this will be where the smokers will stand so everyone walking past can look and point.
Many years ago I lived in West Quad and a couple stories right below our window was an exit to the computer lab where people would smoke. Our room would frequently smell like a bar from all of the smoke wafting up. Being a dumb college underclassman, we'd frequently throw water and other objects below on the smokers. The good old days.
Denards shoes count? Or how about out of dantonios ears?
I've been told by a reliable source that Denard will be taking a leisurely jog to set fire to his dragging shoelaces in protest of the new ordinance.
during my tenure there. Come to think of it, I am not exactly sure what changed... They still had the butt depositories outside all fo the buildings and I still saw plenty of people smoking. I donno.
an end to terrorism, free health care for the entire planet, and a 24-7 worldwide snuggie dress code. They figure if they just say it then everybody else will get the general idea and fall in line. Eureka!
I am down with the snuggie dress code. They may be the most ridiculus looking thing ever but there is nothing (nothing!!!!!!!!!!!) more comforatable than a snuggie.
Who are these people who still smoke in this day and age? Between the ridiculous prices, the weakness of the drug and the horrible, horrible health effects, I hope you aren't expecting sympathy.
Get yourself some nicorette or an electric cigarette, take a bath, get some new clothes and get into the 21st century.
you should leave your bubble sometime.
48 million people in the US happily/ignorantly still smoke and not damn one of us care what you have to say and what you think it takes to stop smoking. Don't like smokers? Well then I suggest you get yourself into the 21st century and quit whining about it and move your ass at least 10 feet upwind of me.
48 million people in the US happily/ignorantly still smoke and not damn one of us care what you have to say and what you think it takes to stop smoking. Don't like smokers? Well then I suggest you get yourself into the 21st century and quit whining about it and move your ass at least 10 feet upwind of me.
"We don't like your kind"
To be fair, if I could get away from the smoke clouds simply by walking 10 feet away. Here in NYC, one smoker can gas out half a block.
Amen dude. There is nothing more annoying than walking out of a building and into a cloud of smoke. My grandparents smoked and died of lung cancer. My mother was a smoker and had a heart attack from her smoking and alcoholism. I fail to see the benefits and attraction of smoking. It smells like shit an is perhaps the worst thing you can do to your body outside of living in a tanning bed.
I love how this is just getting picked up now, this was a story/controversy back in like 2009
Tickets and fines can't be issued, so your sentence for smoking in public will be angry glares from children and non-smoking adults.
Secondhand smoke causes many of the same diseases as direct smoking, including cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases.[2][3][4] These diseases include:
-
Cancer:
- General: overall increased risk;[7] reviewing the evidence accumulated on a worldwide basis, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2004 that "Involuntary smoking (exposure to secondhand or 'environmental' tobacco smoke) is carcinogenic to humans."[4]
- Lung cancer: the effect of passive smoking on lung cancer has been extensively studied. A series of studies from the USA from 1986–2003,[8][9][10][11] the UK in 1998,[12][13] Australia in 1997[14] and internationally in 2004[15] have consistently shown a significant increase in relative risk among those exposed to passive smoke.[16]
- Breast cancer: The California Environmental Protection Agency concluded in 2005 that passive smoking increases the risk of breast cancer in younger, primarily premenopausal women by 70%[3] and the US Surgeon General has concluded that the evidence is "suggestive," but still insufficient to assert such a causal relationship.[2] In contrast, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2004 that there was "no support for a causal relation between involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke and breast cancer in never-smokers."[4]
- Renal cell carcinoma (RCC): A recent study shows an increased RCC risk among never smokers with combined home/work exposure to passive smoking.[17]
- Passive smoking does not appear to be associated with pancreatic cancer.[18]
- Brain tumor: The risk in children increases significantly with higher amount of passive smoking, even if the mother doesn't smoke,[19] thus not restricting risk to prenatal exposure during pregnancy.
- Ear, nose, and throat: risk of ear infections.[20]
- Circulatory system: risk of heart disease,[22] reduced heart rate variability, higher heart rate.[23]
- Lung problems:
- Cognitive impairment and dementia: Exposure to secondhand smoke may increase the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in adults 50 and over.[26]
-
During pregnancy:
- Low birth weight[3], part B, ch. 3.[27]
- Premature birth[3], part B, ch. 3 (Note that evidence of the causal link is only described as "suggestive" by the US Surgeon General in his 2006 report.[28])
- Recent studies comparing women exposed to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and non-exposed women, demonstrate that women exposed while pregnant have higher risks of delivering a child with congenital abnormalities, longer lengths, smaller head circumferences, and low birth weight.[29]
- General:
-
Risk to children [31]
- Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).[32][33] In his 2006 report, the US Surgeon General concludes: "The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and sudden infant death syndrome."[34]
- Asthma[35][36]
- Lung infections[37][38][39][40]
- More severe illness with bronchiolitis, and worse outcome[41]
- Increased risk of developing tuberculosis if exposed to a carrier[42]
- Allergies
- Crohn's disease.[43]
- Learning difficulties, developmental delays, and neurobehavioral effects.[44][45] Animal models suggest a role for nicotine and carbon monoxide in neurocognitive problems.[40]
- An increase in tooth decay (as well as related salivary biomarkers) has been associated with passive smoking in children.[46]
- Increased risk of middle ear infections.[47][48]
- Skin Disorder
- Overall increased risk of death in both adults, where it is estimated to kill 53,000 nonsmokers per year, making it the 3rd leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.[50][51] and in children.[52] Another research financed by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and Bloomberg Philanthropies found that passive smoking causes about 603,000 death a year, which represents 1% of the world's death.[53]
But this has already gone too far. The restaurant thing shouldn't have happened. If you don't like smoke in a restaurant...then don't go to that restaurant. I know the university has the authority to do what they want, but severely limiting the freedom of the students and visitors does not make for a successful university.