Pushing kids off campus won’t work, especially when they need to do it to feel normal. I have friends that are addicted, and they say that when they don’t have a cigarette when they need one, their skin will start to crawl and they’ll start to get headaches. Imagine the school forcing you to walk off campus every time you felt that. It would not only increase traffic, having to make people drive when it’s really cold out and when they’re rushed, but it will also segregate students who smoke from the rest of the student body. “Pushing them off campus seems particularly hard to justify and even cruel approach.” (Higher Ed)
Now when it comes to Plymouth's situation, it’s a little different. Plymouth had the GREAT idea (please note my sarcasm) to turn to a smoke free campus but not actually do anything about it. So, now that Plymouth is smoke free, you would expect people to not smoke on campus, but that’s not the case. No one is enforcing the smoke free campus. Walking to class every morning I’m seeing people smoke in the middle of campus, on the way to class, right outside buildings, on the steps on Mary Lyon. Nothing is being done to enforce the rule. The only thing that they actually changed was that they took away all the stands to dispose of your cigarette butts. Ya know, like those tall black stands with two holes at the top so you don’t have to litter every time you smoke a cigarette. Yea, those, they don’t have those any more around campus but people smoke cigarettes just as much so instead we have butts all over the ground to make the place nasty. Every time I’m at a bench outside and I look on the ground it’s filled with butts, but it isn’t even the smokers fault in my opinion. Plymouth use to have a problem to that solution, but they can’t be smoke free but also have those stands.
All that I really am asking Plymouth is to either enforce the rule or put those stands up, but what I really believe a good solution is is to have designated smoking areas with the stands so students feel like they can go somewhere where they don’t have to litter, and can smoke in peace where others aren't exposed to cigarette smoke as much.
Anonymous. “Inside Higher Ed.” Essay Arguing That Campus Smoking Bans Are Unsafe, 17 Feb. 2012, www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/02/17/essay-arguing-campus-smoking-bans-are-unsafe
Tufts. “Banning Smoking on Campus Not Solution.” The Tufts Daily, 13 Apr. 2015, tuftsdaily.com/opinion/2015/04/13/banning-smoking-campus-not-solution/.