Smoke-Free Campus

Madison city has been smoke-free for a few years (albeit people are still disgruntled).

How bad is the smoking scene around there?

Looks like you and Ryan will have to settle with using the patch or chewing Nicorette.

I like it.

I think smokers have the right to smoke on their own property, and only if it doesn't waft to anyone else's.

It's a bit like Mills libertarianism ... you have the right to do what you want insofar as it doesn't harm others ...

If you suffer or die of second-hand smoke inhalation, I'd say that's pretty effen harmful.

While I agree with smoking bans in enclosed places (like restaurants, bars, sporting events etc..) I think these "no smoking in public" bans are going a bit too far.

Now I HATE the smell of smokers. But really, how hard is it to move a couple of feet to get out of the way of the smoke?

The hospital I work at just enforced a campus-wide smoking ban, including outside.  It is wonderful!  No more walking out of the entrance and into a cloud full of a smoke.  For the most part, everyone now follows it.  Employees go across the street and direct visitors to do the same.  Every once in awhile, people are smoking and they get told they have to move.  It's worked out way better than I thought it would.

I am not a smoker and don't have much of an issue with restricting public areas where people can smoke but this statement seems a bit far-fetched to me.  I would think that it would take a much stronger heat source than a cigarette to ignite an oxygen tank. 

I am all for it, but then I have a family history of smoking related illness/disease/death as well as working in the Oncology secter so I see the results of smoking every day. (I know most people associate it with Lung cancer but it actually has a wide array of cancers that it can increase a persons risk of getting, including Skin cancers, bladders cancer, and I believe some gynecological cancers - though that is out of my area so not too sure on the last one). My hospital campus is smoke free for patients or workers/volunteers. If a worker is caught smoking within, I think, 50 feet of the campus (not the building or an entrance) they can and have been fired for violating rules. (not sure what happens to patients but I know it is enforced).

My alma Mater was in the process, when I was a senior, of making our campus smoke free. Luckily as a private Lutheran University we would not have to put up with much scrutiny and the majority of Alumni/students/board members were for it from what I knew. I am hoping it spreads and many individual institutions choose to do this. I am not necessarily a fan of banning smoking in certain public places like parks etc where there is going to be plenty of space and open air but Washington already had a ban in place of no smoking within 25 feet of any public building entrence/exit/or window that could open.

First, Yay for the ban! We recently were at a hospital where there was a property-wide ban and it was great. No cloud at entrances or downwind of people in the parking lot.

And it IS hard to 'get out of the way' of smoke. We run in our neighborhood down the middles of a residential streets and quite often we will get a nice big lungful of someone's ciggy smoke. When they are smoking on their porch. Not in the car at the street, but 35 feet away on their porch. There's not much more I can do to stay away from people's front porches than run down the middle of the street. (let's save the argument as to whether I should be running there...)

My MIL was visiting and she smokes. She would go out to our arbor (as opposed to the back porch) which was nice of her, but the smoke still followed her back in the house, wafted in through the windows, etc. After 3 days, I could smell it in my house when I came in. Ugh. I'd give a lot to have a magic not-want-to-smoke wand.

Agreed, it is very hard to get out of the way of smokers, not to mention the fact that I agree with the "why should I have to" mentality.   

Smoking is banned indoors where I live but outside bars/restaurants its allowed.  I always love when I see a table of folks together and then someone gets up from the table and moves next to me to smoke.  I'm the first one to call them out on it.  I get dirty looks but who cares... you don't want to bother your friends with your smoking but you'll come over by me to do it.

So Fresh So Clean - 2011-06-13 12:32 PM

cornchexs - 2011-06-13 12:03 PM

So Fresh So Clean - 2011-06-13 10:43 AM Overkill. At the local hospital (and I think all hospitals in my province) there is a campus wide smoking ban. In addition to adverse health effects, smoking could ignite and explode oxygen tanks! AND YET PEOPLE ARE CHAIN SMOKING RIGHT OUTSIDE THE MAIN ENTRANCE!! A campus wide smoking ban is just too hard to enforce, even with the $300 fine that goes with it. Set the rules so that you don't have to work too hard to enforce them, or they won't be enforced at all.

I am not a smoker and don't have much of an issue with restricting public areas where people can smoke but this statement seems a bit far-fetched to me.  I would think that it would take a much stronger heat source than a cigarette to ignite an oxygen tank. 

You could be right, however I know this has happened for propane tanks. In Toronto a couple years back, notices in my apartment were posted advising residents not to throw cigarette buts from their balcony. This was in the wake of a huge blaze that started when someone's cigarette but ignited a barbeque propane tank. Oxygen might not be as volatile, but one of my relative's house no longer has any lit flames out of fear for his tank. Sorry to side track. I am just trying to pad my post count until I hit 2000

Oxygen is highly flammable. The issue is not quite as simple as "will the tank blow up", and more that oxygen is being used. It is not just sitting in a tank.

Here's my anecdote: Many years ago, when I was a lab tech, there was a patient on nasal O2 (the little plastic tube that puts oxygen right into the nose). Her pastor gave her a cigarette despite all the "Flammable" and "No Smoking" signs in her room. She died a horrible death when the oxygen ignited, setting her on fire in the hospital bed.

Occasionally (rarely), in an operating room, the electric cauterization ignites oxygen, resulting in an emergency.  

gearboy - 2011-06-12 12:45 PM

So Fresh So Clean - 2011-06-13 12:32 PM

cornchexs - 2011-06-13 12:03 PM

So Fresh So Clean - 2011-06-13 10:43 AM Overkill. At the local hospital (and I think all hospitals in my province) there is a campus wide smoking ban. In addition to adverse health effects, smoking could ignite and explode oxygen tanks! AND YET PEOPLE ARE CHAIN SMOKING RIGHT OUTSIDE THE MAIN ENTRANCE!! A campus wide smoking ban is just too hard to enforce, even with the $300 fine that goes with it. Set the rules so that you don't have to work too hard to enforce them, or they won't be enforced at all.

I am not a smoker and don't have much of an issue with restricting public areas where people can smoke but this statement seems a bit far-fetched to me.  I would think that it would take a much stronger heat source than a cigarette to ignite an oxygen tank. 

You could be right, however I know this has happened for propane tanks. In Toronto a couple years back, notices in my apartment were posted advising residents not to throw cigarette buts from their balcony. This was in the wake of a huge blaze that started when someone's cigarette but ignited a barbeque propane tank. Oxygen might not be as volatile, but one of my relative's house no longer has any lit flames out of fear for his tank. Sorry to side track. I am just trying to pad my post count until I hit 2000

Oxygen is highly flammable. The issue is not quite as simple as "will the tank blow up", and more that oxygen is being used. It is not just sitting in a tank.

Here's my anecdote: Many years ago, when I was a lab tech, there was a patient on nasal O2 (the little plastic tube that puts oxygen right into the nose). Her pastor gave her a cigarette despite all the "Flammable" and "No Smoking" signs in her room. She died a horrible death when the oxygen ignited, setting her on fire in the hospital bed.

Occasionally (rarely), in an operating room, the electric cauterization ignites oxygen, resulting in an emergency.  

Minor point.  Oxygen does NOT burn.

Oxygen enables other things to burn.

Shut off the Oxygen, the fire will die down. (not extinguish....there is Oxygen in the air obviously.)

In the presence of pure oxygen, some things will burn MUCH more quickly than they normally would, which CAN result in an explosion, or at least a "flare up."

The college I work at has had the smoke free campus  in effect for a year.   Faculty and staff can be reprimanded if caught smoking.      I'm not sure about the sanctions for students.   Before the smoking ban we had designated places for smoking.  Very few smokers used them.   Most would smoke at the entrance to buildings and if one was coming or going, especially right after class or right before it then one would have to run the gauntlet of smokers.    The ban has caused a few to be inconvenienced, but has benefited more that it has hurt. 

I am a militant anti-smoker and a libertarian.   This smoking thing has always been a dilemma for me.  Individual rights are important; but, in this case, so are group rights.    That said, I do breathe easier at work now. 

I'd be OK with keeping them away from entrances as well.  But say on a bench, 100 yards in the middle of a common area?  That's just getting silly.

What gives that automobile the right to pollute your air?  Or that lady's perfume that you are allergic to?  Etc etc etc...It's a slippery slope.

As an alumni, legacy, former employee, son and grandson of former employees, I'm all for it.

My dad worked for UofM for 25+ years.  If they would have instituted this many years ago, maybe he would have been forced to quit and have lived longer than 54.

Wait, I better clarify since I was wrong - the smoking ban in the city is for inside buildings/businesses, especially in restaurants and bars, and NOT a city-wide ban for outdoors, too.  Smoking is not banned outside - people are allowed to smoke outside a business in a designated smoking area outside the building, or away from the building.

I'm guessing that our work will get to this same place eventually... but for right now we have little heated smoking huts on 2 sides of the building.

I'd like to see a full-campus ban.

HOWEVER, I justify my long lunch runs by saying that "if they can pay them to smoke an hour a day, they can pay me to run an hour a day."   So, I'll lose that little mental victory.   But I'll still run at lunch.