If you have ever spent – as I have – more than several hours at once in the stifling, windowless crypt known as the second floor of Lauinger Library, you will surely understand the sheer joy that comes when you’re finally able to leave. As I emerge, bleary-eyed, burdened with books and eager for a long-awaited breath of fresh air, I inevitably walk into that omnipresent cloud of cigarette smoke.
According to Georgetown’s official smoking policy, “Smoking is allowed in designated smoking areas. Designated exterior smoking areas must be 25 feet from entries, outdoor air intakes and windows.” The policy further orders that university managers, supervisors and staff are responsible for enforcing these guidelines.
Last week, I saw a Department of Public Safety officer confront a freshman throwing snowballs at a window, but I have never witnessed anyone chastise a student for violating the smoking policy. While the debate over Georgetown’s alcohol policy and its strict regulations raged for months, I’ve never heard a single word about the smoking policy or its utter lack of enforcement. No one seems to mind that walking through a fog of smoke has become a prerequisite to swiping your GOCard for entry to on-campus buildings.
I live in Village C East, and as if living there as a sophomore isn’t bad enough, I can’t enter or exit the building without being buffeted by clouds of cigarette smoke. No matter what time of day or night, I can count on meeting a huddled group of smokers loitering immediately in front of the door.
You need only notice the scores of cigarette butts littering the ground directly in front of doorways on campus to realize that these enigmatic “exterior smoking areas” aren’t 25 feet from entryways: They are part of the entryways themselves.
Comparatively speaking, Georgetown’s policy is actually quite liberal. Although smoking is banned in all indoor locations, smokers still possess free reign over most of the rest of campus – an exceptional privilege in a country that has recently committed itself to a “Great American Smokeout.”
eanwhile, some municipalities – including “Clean Air” Calabasas, Calif., believed to have the country’s strictest anti-smoking laws – have banned smoking in all outdoor public places. Fifteen states have passed comprehensive smoking statutes, which prohibit smoking in restaurants, workplaces and bars.
Across the country, smoking laws, higher tobacco taxes and vigorous anti-smoking campaigns have brought the number of Americans who smoke to below 20 percent for the first time since the 1960s.
The Marlboro Man, once the epitome of American masculinity, has ridden off into the proverbial sunset; even President Obama has endeavored to quit smoking. Gone are the iconic days of Humphrey Bogart with cigarette in hand – those kinds of images have been replaced by grim advertisements warning of the dangers of secondhand smoke. As Nick Naylor says in the film “Thank You for Smoking,”These days, when someone smokes in the movies, they’re either a psychopath or a European.”
Across the Atlantic, where smoking doesn’t carry the social stigma that it does in the United States, similar laws present a challenge to the European ethos. In some European countries, more than half of all adults light up. In my native Croatia, cigarettes are a ubiquitous feature of daily life and, while the Croatian Parliament enacted a ban on smoking in public places last year, I highly doubt it will have any effect on undercutting tobacco’s influence, at least in private establishments. The obsessive cultural crusade to eradicate smoking everywhere seems to be something that Croatians have little desire to emulate.
As Georgetown’s policy claims, “The university will attempt to maintain an environment that is reasonably free from tobacco smoke.” Excuse me? In America’s new smoke-free society, the only place where I still find myself exposed to pervasive smoking is, well, Georgetown.
Aside from the fact that it may be too lenient, I don’t find the smoking policy unreasonable – it just needs to be enforced. There’s no need to feel guilty about forcing smokers to stand 25 feet away from doorways.
y goal is not to ostracize smokers as a group; American public opinion has been doing that quite well without my input. I’m not going to preach about the dangers of smoking, and if the girl licking trash cans in that infamous Ydouthink.com commercial didn’t convince you to quit, I’m certainly not going to try. What you do with your time, money and lungs is really none of my concern. We all have our vices. Out of respect for your fellow students, just keep your smoke to yourselves.
Ena Dekanic is a sophomore in the College and director-general of NAIMUN XLVI. She can be reached at dekanicthehoya.com. Crying Over Spilled Milk appears every other Tuesday.
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