DVC is one step closer to becoming a smoke-free campus.
According to Vice President of Legislative Affairs and President-elect Sam Park, ASDVC has voted on an initiative that would push smoking areas and ashtrays further away from campus, making our school smoke free.
Park acknowledges that this topic of becoming a smoke free campus is still in its early stages, as it would still need to be ratified and approved by the district.
According to Park, state law requires the use of tobacco to be at least 20 feet outside of government funded buildings, such as our school. But students have been voicing their disdain over the current location of smoking areas.
“We’ve had complaints when we were gathering ASDVC surveys from our students,” said Park. “[They were] saying that there are smokers too close to the entrances. Spring time comes and a lot of students are getting allergies from pollens or dust and they’re going around and smoking irritates their airways, so they have been making their complaints to the ASDVC board.”
Bryan Pinelli, a 28-year-old DVC student, agrees with the initiative explaining that they should move smoking pits to alternative areas, allowing people the opportunity not to smell or walk through the smoke.
Park doesn’t plan to “disenfranchise” students who smoke. He intends to further separate the smokers and non-smokers, which can give those who do smoke the freedom to do so, without interfering with the health of those who do not.
Jamie Smith, a 23-year-old psychology major, tries to be considerate of others when she smokes and thinks that having a designated area for other smokers would be a good idea.
“I think they’re valid concerns for the people that don’t want to have to walk through it and stuff but at the same time I feel like in California the anti-smoking campaigns have gone really far to where… smokers are like the new Republicans, everybody hates them,” said Smith. “So I think if they were going to do that, they would just have to make sure that the smokers aren’t just standing in the parking lot, but actually have a designated area.”
While ASDVC is on board with the idea of becoming a smoke-free campus, Park understands that there is a certain stigma that follows that label.
“There seems to be this notion by just the words ‘smoke free’ that we are immediately targeting smokers in campus and that’s not true,” said Park. “What we want to say is: we’re going to provide them with accessible, designated smoking areas where it doesn’t really harm others who do not smoke, so we’re also thinking about our smoking population here.”
