With a college career comes stress — most have experienced the agitating effects of being a university student. It’s difficult to find the right crutch that’ll aid one in relieving some of the stress caused by a busy academic schedule.
Cigarettes are many students’ go-to resource for relaxing. According to an article by Adam Scarano on the effects of smoking for Livestrong, the nicotine found in cigarettes does actually relax the smoker’s skeletal muscles.
But this form of “relaxation” comes with a price. As you probably already know, but might choose to disregard, smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer, heart disease and could, of course, end up killing you.
College students, most of whom are in their early twenties, should be enjoying a smoke-free lifestyle – not one involving worrying about when they’ll have their next smoke.
As of September 1, the Cal State Long Beach campus is now smoke- and tobacco- free, and it’s a great thing.
That’s right, CSULB will now be a tobacco-free campus, which means no cigarettes, e-cigarettes or vape-pens can be smoked on campus grounds.
Although I’m unsure of how successful this new campus-wide campaign is going to be, I’m sure it’ll encourage some students to ease off of smoking.
Moreover, as a non-smoker, I’m excited to experience a completely secondhand smoke-free campus.
The thing is, although CSULB has promoted the campaign extensively throughout campus— through promotional ads and even information booths, the campaign is not a policy enforced by law.
If students are caught smoking by “Breathe advocates,” they’ll receive something called an awareness card – a glorified slap on the wrist.
Personally, I believe that awareness cards aren’t enough. Student smokers won’t respect a policy that doesn’t involve them getting into any trouble — the kind of trouble that involves them getting a citation of some sort.
The Breathe campaign could work so much better if the campus authorities were involved in some way. Instead of warnings, student smokers should be fined.
It might seem unfair, but a completely secondhand smoke-free campus seems like a great idea to me.
I want the Breathe campaign to work.
The campaign, if respected, would bring some positive change to the health of so many 49ers.
For those who aren’t giving up cigarettes, even with this campaign in effect, I’m hoping it’ll at least encourage them to resort to better crutches in order to relieve some stress – or feed their nicotine craving.