Two weeks ago, Campus Council addressed the lack of smoking restrictions on the East and West campuses. This conversation, while triggered by a recent incident where a student in Edens Quadrangle suffered a very serious asthmatic reaction to secondhand smoke, has much larger implications for the Duke community.
The new guidelines that Campus Council advocates were developed with an eye towards both current policies at peer institutions and medical data provided by Healthy Devils. Campus Council advocates limiting smoking to certain designated areas for the following reasons:
a. A student’s residential experience extends beyond the confines of his or her dorm room. Subjecting any student, but especially those with life threatening medical conditions, to any level of secondhand smoke is an unacceptable compromise.
b. Implementing such a policy is in line with broader trends at Duke, throughout the State of North Carolina, and on university campuses across the country.
c. The entire Duke Medical Center campus became tobacco free in July 2007.
d. As of January 2, 2010 smoking will be banned in most public places in North Carolina
e. Nineteen states have enacted comprehensive smoke-free legislation prohibiting smoking in all workplaces, restaurants, and bars.
f. Even a 25-foot policy allows for the potential for smoke to enter into both individual window AC units and centralized AC intake locations.
Campus Council is pushing for the implementation of this policy not with the intent of ostracizing smokers, but rather to limit the effect that secondhand smoke has on others. It should be noted that it is neither within Campus Council’s purview, nor is it in any way the aim of the council to dictate students’ choices when it comes to smoking.
Stephen Temple
President, Campus Council
Trinity ’11
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