Baker Geist
News Reporter

The push for tobacco reform at Mesa State, which began in the fall of 2009, came to a close March 17 after the Board of Trustees approved a new tobacco use policy.
The new policy restricts any tobacco use within a 40 foot radius from any building on campus, according to Associated Student Government Vice President Nick Lopez.
The new policy is an extension of Colorado’s Clean Air Act, which went into effect July 1, 2006 and prohibited smoking within 15 feet of the entryway of a business or building, unless local law determines otherwise.
The policy only applies to the main campus. The Montrose campus is smoke-free and the Western Colorado Community College (WCCC) campus has two designated areas for tobacco use.
The issue of tobacco reform was first brought before ASG last fall. Three initial reform options were initially considered by ASG: a complete ban on tobacco use on campus, creating an extension from entrance ways where tobacco could be used, or keeping the established policy in place.
Lopez said there were a number of reasons reform was needed. Those include: tobacco users ignoring the state law, tobacco users being discourteous to non-tobacco users, and littering.
After five public forums to hear opinions on the issue, looking at policies at other institutions and examining research conducted on campus, the 40-foot rule was established.
The on-campus research consisted of a study conducted by Dr. Jerry Moorman’s marketing and research class in the fall of 2009. Out of 1483 surveys completed, the study found that just over 23 percent of students use tobacco daily and 30.4 percent use it in social sProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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uations.
ASG President Ryan Hendershot said littering of cigarette butts and chewing tobacco was a major concern of students. He finds students’ littering to be disrespectful to the facilities and maintenance staff. He also said there are better ways for the staff’s talents to be utilized.
“Someone has to pay for it and it’s with our tuition that we’re paying someone to pick up cigarette butts,” Hendershot said.
The new policy will be self-enforced. Both Hendershot and Lopez said they’ve seen more people being cautious of how and where they use and dispose of chew and cigarettes. Still, some students believe ASG could make things easier on tobacco users.
“I think if they’re going to do that (ASG) needed to move the ash trays at least 40 feet away from the doors. That would imply you’re allowed to (use tobacco) and a lot of people don’t know all the rules just yet,” MSC senior David Austin said.
Austin said he did understand the public health concerns but he doesn’t see the issue as “detrimental.” He believes the 40-foot policy is a reasonable compromise between tobacco users and non-tobacco users. However, he doesn’t want too many imposed rules.
“It is kind of a free will issue,” Austin said of student’s rights to smoke. “It’s not a closed area; it is outside so we should all be able to enjoy that however we want too.”
The obvious question becomes what will be done if students don’t police themselves.
“We do want to ensure that we’re all adults here and students can self-regulate themselves,” Lopez said. “We’re going to be monitoring the situation to see if it improves through the self-regulation process. If it does not or it gets worse, we’ll re-examine the issue and determine what enforcement mechanisms we need to put in place, or if a more strict regulation is going to be needed.”
While students such as Austin believe in a person’s right to smoke, he said the issue comes down to students being courteous to each other.
“It’s all about respect . . . You gotta understand that people don’t like smoke,” he said. “Some people are allergic, some people just can’t stand it. You don’t want to overstep your boundaries but you do have rights as a human being.”
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bgeist@mesastate.edu