Student Government Association passes campus-wide tobacco ban on to Faculty Senate

Tempers flared at Tuesday’s Student Government Association meeting as tobacco users and tobacco free students, faculty and staff gathered at an open forum meeting to discuss a campus wide tobacco ban. After two hours of debate from both sides of the issue, the SGA voted 11 - 7 to pass a resolution supporting a campus-wide ban on all tobacco products. The proposal will now go to the Faculty Senate, where it may be revised, and then it will go to the Board of Governors who will make the final decision on its passage. Student Body President Ray Harrell Jr. said he wanted senators to set aside their own opinions on this controversial issue, and consider their constituents. “The executive branch, as well as the Senate, is voted upon and represents the student body,” Harrell said.

“We are there to represent their voice. This isn’t a movement from my organization. This is a grassroots movement that has been developing since before I got here.” The Assessment Day Tobacco Survey Report data from April 2012 showed Marshall students resoundingly favored a change in Marshall’s tobacco policies. Three hundred and sixty four students responded to the survey, 71 percent of which supported all of Marshall’s campus grounds and parking to be smoke-free. Seventy four percent of the faculty members who filled out a similar survey supported a smoke-free campus. Harrell said these results have a 95 percent level of confidence, and have a margin of A joint committee involving representatives of the President’s Office, Student Affairs, Housing and Residence life, Student Health and the student body president, drafted the proposal now supported by the Senate.

The proposal involved a campus wide ban of tobacco products including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco, dip, pipes, cigars, cigarillos, hookah or water pipe smoking, snus and snuff both indoors and outdoors. Student Health Education Specialist Amy Saunders and Piyali Dasgupta, associate professor of pharmacology, physiology and toxicology at the Joan C. Edward School of Medicine, were the first people to speak, and subsequently field questions from concerned students. Saunders said the ban is supposed to promote a healthy environment for both tobacco and non-tobacco users alike on Marshall’s campus. Saunders also said the campus would save money and time because clean up crews would no longer have to spend an average of four hours a day cleaning tobacco products off of campus.

“We have to keep this place beautiful,” Saunders said. “We’re not trying to tell people how to live, we’re trying to promote a safe environment for everyone.” Dasgupta said emerging research shows that all forms of nicotine can be harmful to the user, and many times those around the user, which was why a ban of all tobacco use should be supported. A student gallery then posed questions on how the ban was to be implemented, enforced, and the effects that would follow its passage. During this period, Dasgupta, Saunders, Harrell and several senators explained that, according to the American Nonsmoker’s Rights Foundation, Marshall would follow 814 other universities in banning tobacco if this proposal passes the Board of Governors. Harrell said enforcement would be carried out through the Office of Student Health, but that eventually the culture of the university would reflect that smoking on campus just is not acceptable and self regulation would occur. Several attendees were not happy with the proposal, and expressed their frustration during a round of speeches from members of the gallery.

Wittlee Retton, junior public communications major, said a total ban on campus was unnecessary, and the senate should opt for designated smoking areas on campus before moving toward the full ban. “The senate should take baby steps here, not just jump to the total ban,” Retton said. “You have to boil the water slowly.” Nick Chancey, senate parliamentarian, said he was torn on the issue. “I hate smoking,” Chancey said “I don’t think it’s the university’s place to ban it.” The issue is now out of the SGA’s hands, and moves to the Faculty Senate where it may undergo changes before reaching the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors will then have the final decision as to whether a change to Marshall’s tobacco policy is enacted.