Michigan Stadium: Smokefree in 2010
If you're a smoker, plan to hold off for a few hours whenever you come to a Michigan Football game this year:
[Press Release]
Michigan Stadium to go smoke-free in 2010 season
The University of Michigan Athletic Department will make Michigan Stadium a smoke-free zone when the 2010 season opens against Connecticut Sept. 4.
"We have allowed individuals to smoke on the concourse in the past but with the new renovations and the university's commitment to become a smoke-free campus in 2011, we decided it was in the best interest of everyone to institute the change now," said U-M Director of Athletics Dave Brandon. "The move will ensure a healthier environment for all fans attending Wolverine football games."
Smoking already was not permitted inside Michigan Stadium's seated-bowl area. Now the smoke-free environment will extend to everything inside the gates of the Big House.
In April of 2009, The University of Michigan announced its commitment to become a smoke-free environment in July 2011. The change aligns perfectly with the institution’s goal to improve the health of the U-M community. Since the change was announced, thousands of students, faculty and staff have provided feedback regarding the roll out of the plan to ensure it occurs in a thoughtful, inclusive and respectful manner.
Subcommittees which include smokers, former smokers and never-smokers are carefully considering the implications for student life, faculty and staff, grounds and facilities, and visitors to the University.
The idea to have the university go entirely smoke-free began with student complaints, and it is one more step along a path set in the 1980s, noted Robert Winfield, M.D., the university’s chief health officer and co-chair of the Smoke-free Initiative committee along with Kenneth Warner, dean of the School of Public Health. In 1987, the university adopted a ban on smoking in buildings, (with exceptions for some residence halls) and in university vehicles. In 1998, the U-M Health System prohibited smoking on its grounds and in public spaces, and in 2003, the student-led Residence Halls Association eliminated smoking from all resident halls.
The U-M will join the University of Iowa and Indiana University, both of which implemented their smoke-free campuses in 2008. In all, more than 260 campuses in the United States and elsewhere have gone smoke-free.
For more information on the smoke-free initiative, go to http://www.hr.umich.edu/
[/Press Release]
Not surprising, to say the least. Also, probably a welcome change for some (most?).
banned on the first post. Probably.
Probably not...
As a smoker, my addiction to Michigan football far exceeds my addiction to cigarrettes. I just hope we don't see the same health nuts on here harping on the evils of cirrhosis when Mary Sue attempts to ban delicious beer in Ann Arbor.
mostly because you drinking beer doesn't hurt me and drunk and disorderly conduct is already a crime.
I smoked for 10 years. One day after a game I realized that I hadn't had a smoke in 4+ hours and realized that I didn't need to smoke one every half hour. Within a week I had had my last smoke ever.
good for you
Thank god, it was starting to get brutal underneath the structures
or illegal. If it is legal, the restrictions on where and when a person can smoke should be based upon rational criterial, and the restrictions should be rationally related to acheiving an ascertainable goal. Prohibiting somebody from smoking outside of any structure and not under any roof is not rationally related to any ascertainable goal. If you say that it is, and that the goal is to make everybody healthier, including (and specifically in this example) the smoker, and you believe that the state and federal government should be able to force health on an individual person, then smoking should be illegal along with the following:
1. Cheeseburgers and Pizza
2. Automobiles
3. Beer
4. Regular and Diet Coke
5. Family Guy
A "campus wide" smoking ban. Absolutely absurd. (And vulnterable to Constitutional challenge if somebody would sac-up)
One person eating food does nothing to affect the health of those nearby. Car exhaust is toxic in high dosages, but long-term exposure to moderate dosages of car exhaust alone has not been linked to cancer. Carbon monoxide doesn't kill you with cancer. Exposure to cigarette smoke on a secondhand basis HAS been linked to cancer. Ask the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the EPA.
And don't think smoking "outside" makes things more acceptable...go to any building entrance at the University in winter. Cigarette butts and smokers litter the area, creating a nice noxious cloud of tar, cadmium, nicotine, and a bunch of other nasty little chemicals. There are also large airborne particles that aren't present with car exhaust.
Do whatever you want to your body. But until it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that secondhand smoke does not do permanent damage to other people, smoking bans will go into effect.
Is banning smoking from the golf course rational? No. Not unless you count the cigarette butts as litter, which does make sense.
Is banning smoking from large parking lots rational? No.
But the University owns their property and makes their own rules just like any other school, negating the Constitutional claim.
funded in large part from the State, thereby reviving the Constitutional claim. If you have a problem with cigarettes on the ground, than your gripe is with littering, not smoking. I smoke, and I cannot remember the last time that I put a cigarette out anywhere but an ashtray. If I am not near an ashtray, I put it out on the bottom of my shoe and throw it in the nearest garbage can. As far as second hand smoke, you should have the same problem with people that drive cars that you do with somebody smoking in a designated smoking area. If you would ban smoking outside in an area designated for that purpose, why would not ban it on a golf course where you can be waiting on a hole to tee off with four smokers? Why one and not the other?
As far as the State legislation, you keep it legal on a Casino floor? Why, because one vice is OK as long as you are doing it during another vice. And those that gamble (also legal) are less deserving of the protection from "lethal" second hand smoke than non-gamblers?
Come on man. Personally, I am tired of non-smokers with less conspicous vices using smokers as their personal punching bags to make themselves feel better. This is a free country, and restrictions placed on voluntary use of legal products should, at the very least, make a teeeny bit of sense.
I can't wait to smoke the Buckeyes at home next year!
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