Every year the Office of Health Promotion surveys VCU students’ smoking habits. Last year’s study showed that nearly 22 percent of the 1,608 students participating in the study socially smoked cigarettes.
According to the survey about 13 percent of student smokers lighted up on a daily basis. The study further indicated that 75 percent of the student population does not smoke cigarettes or has not smoked one in more than a month.
Paul Olexa, junior marketing major, said smoking had a detrimental effect on his life.
“My mom smoked while she was pregnant,” he said, adding that as a result he and his twin sister showed early signs of asthma. Nowadays, he said he experiences asthmatic symptoms when he plays recreational sports, especially indoors, because of his early exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke.
Linda Hancock, assistant director for the Office of Health Promotion, whose office annually administers the American College Health Association National College Health Assessment for the university, said smoking poses serious health threats that include aggravated asthma and an increased risk for developing allergies.
“If an asthmatic is exposed to secondhand smoke it can flare an attack,” she said, although for other people the smoke is more of an annoyance.
Marissa Ashkenaz, senior anthropology major and a smoker, contends that secondhand smoke poses little threat to nonsmokers since they are exposed to it only for short periods of time at restaurants. Nevertheless, she supports a smoke ban in restaurants but not in bars.
“I don’t like smoking when I’m eating or smoke around me when I’m eating. In bars, it’s a social thing, so I think (a smoke-ban there) is stupid.”
The final decision, Ashkenaz said, should be left to the person who smokes.
Citing the national college study, Hancock pointed out that since the vast majority of VCU students apparently don’t smoke, laws prohibiting the act in public draw an unfavorable response from smokers who represent the minority of VCU’s population.
Despite that finding, Hancock said smokers prefer to live in a smoke-free environment.
Korenna Dowell, a cigarette smoker for two years, said she too, prefers a smoke-free indoor environment. The sophomore international studies major said restaurants have every right to ban smoking because people do not want to smell smoke while they eat.
“I think it’s disgusting to smoke inside. I don’t like secondhand smoke,” Dowell said, adding that smoke in clubs and bars can be an annoyance as well. “I hate going home and smelling like cigarettes.”
Hancock said a mandatory public smoke-ban would benefit student workers because college students make up a high population of restaurant employees.
“The person who suffers is the person who works in that environment,” she said. “It affects the waiters and waitresses.”
At Strawberry Street Cafe, about half of the staff consists of former or current VCU students. David Lambert, Hyperlink Caf