Kwon-Hyuk Lee (Raphael)

Professor Rosenfeld
English 113A
16 November 2016
Should We Ban Smoking on California College Campuses?
Cough! Cough! What is the definition of smoking? The meaning of smoking is
the inhalation of the smoke of burning tobacco encased in cigarettes, pipes, and cigars
(medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com). Most people will do not know a small history
of smoke-free campuses. California State University - Fullerton (CSUF) became the first
smoke-free campus on August 1, 2013 from CSU system, on January 1, 2014 all of the
University of California (UC) became smoke-free campuses, and Americans for
Nonsmokers Right, a countrywide campaign group organization, explained that on
January 1, 2016 at least 1,476 institution of higher education campus are 100% tobaccofree in the United States (Smoking ban: Valid or Infringement?). In the article titled,
Lets Ban All Flavors of Cigarettes, Derrick Jackson shows that the reasons why the
menthol cigarettes should be banned in addition to the candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes.
The author also explains that menthol is the cigarette that makes the most money. We
should ban smoking around our college or university campuses because the quality of
health issues for the firsthand-smokers and the secondhand-smokers is diminishing
negatively every year.
Critics argue that we should abolish the smoking policy on college or university
campuses because they believe that the institution of higher education is not respecting

smokers rights, such as the equal right to choose or make their own personal decisions.
However, the others say that people should ban smoking on campuses in order for
smokers and nonsmokers to have good health for their future; For example, in the article
called, Chapman University says thank you for not smoking Alex Chan from the Los
Angeles Times says, Since 1964, around 2.5 million nonsmokers have died from health
problem... The CDC also reported that cigarette smoking causes over 480,000 deaths
each year in the United States, including 90% of lung cancer deaths, and that more
women die from lung cancers each year than from breast cancer (3). In other words, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the leading national public health
institute of the United States, stated that since 1964, around 2.5 million nonsmokers
passed away from the second-hand smoking. Over 480,000 citizens are deaths because of
smoking cigarette and the 90% of people have died of lung cancer. Every year, more
women die from lung cancers than breast cancer. This shows that smoking cigarette is
one of the serious issues in our society and it is case the huge detrimental effects to
humans body because if over 480,000 citizens die because of the responsible of the
cigarette smoking per year in the United States, including nearly 42,000 deaths resulting
from secondhand smoke exposure, which is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,3000
deaths every day. That is the reason why the Campuses Organized and United for Good
Health (COUGH) from California State University - Northridges (CSUN) mission is to
promote a safe and healthy environment for students and general public on the CSUN
campus by reducing the health risks associated with tobacco smoke (Smoking ban on
campus will improve our quality of life, Contributor, 2).

Smoking tobacco products in public areas like: restaurants, parks, sports fields,
schools. and streets can affects our green environment and the major nature dejasture will
be the land and water pollution. In the article called, How Smoking Affects the
Environment? from smoking.ygoy.com reports that, Every day millions of cigarette
butts are left on the ground. Maximum of the cigarette butts finally end up in lakes and
rivers. By mistake fishes and other water animals eat these butts resulting in death. The
remaining butts left on the ground will almost 25 through 26 years to break down into the
mall pieces (1). This means that the citizens of the United States smoke cigarettes and
they throw their small roll of tobacco butts on the landscape normally after when they
finish their smoke. Some limited small butts smooth along, end up in lakes and rivers,
and create a cause of the death of sea animals. Moreover, CSUN had a online survey
about smoking tobacco on campus; It says 75.4% of students are agree that CSUN should
be one of the smoke-free campuses and includes from that percentage; 56.9% of students
says that CSUN should not ban only cigarettes but also ban all types of tobacco products.
This shows that CSUN students care about their green zones at school, want to make
keep clean, Preserve the environment for a long time for the next generations.
It is especially hard to create all smoke-free campus because everyone has
different experiences, thoughts, ideas, point of views, feelings about smoking cigarettes.
Some of the students consider that people should ban smoking on college or university
campuses and the other half believe that removing the smoking rules are an excellent
suggestion to the smokers. As a California State University - Northridge student and from
non smoker's personal experience, I believe we should ban smoking cigarettes on college

campuses because still many American citizens die form diverse smoking issues. We as
nonsmokers are also asking and announcing to the smoking students to not smoke
cigarettes at least inside of the school for the non-smoking students.

Work Cited
Chan, Alex. Chapman University Says Thank You for Not Smoking. Los Angeles
Times, Los
Angeles Times, 31 Jan. 2016,
www.latimes.com/socal/weekend/news/tn-wknd-et-0131-smoke-free-20160131story.html.
Smoking. Smoking Site Wide Activity RSS, Ygoy Health Community ,
smoking.ygoy.com/smoking-and-the-environment/.
Smoking Ban on Campus Will Improve Our Quality of Life. The Sundial, The Sundial,
8 Mar.
2012, sundial.csun.edu/2012/03/smoking-ban-on-campus-will-improve-ourquality-of-life/.
Socala, Nicole. Smoking Ban: Valid or Infringement? The Sundial, The Sundial, 23
Jan. 2014,
sundial.csun.edu/2014/01/smoking-ban-valid-or-infringement/.