Opinions

CSULB should crack down and enforce designated smoking areas

We’ve all heard it before: smoking can kill you.

We’ve seen it in loads of radical advertisements attempting to persuade smokers to quit.

There are advertisements featuring an old citizen with a hole in her throat, a man diagnosed with emphysema coughing erratically and, of course, the infant dying of secondhand smoke.

Excuse this blatant approach, but many anti-smoking agencies, including the American Lung Cancer Society and Above the Influence, have thrown around deaths linked to smoking as if there was no tomorrow (and for good reason).

As much as we appreciate these attempts to keep smoking at a bare minimum, the idea of all smokers quitting tomorrow is equivalent to the idea of Republicans and Democrats working together – highly unlikely and out of reach.

Smoking on our campus is a compromise. Stay away from me, and you can have your cigarette.

Many major businesses and corporations have already initiated the idea of keeping mutual terms between smokers and nonsmokers. Businesses can even be fined almost $500 for violating California workplace smoking restrictions.

Major theme parks such as Disneyland have an online map allowing smokers to easily find smoking areas.

Who wouldn’t want to mimic the ways of the “Happiest Place on Earth”?

It’s about time we take action to keep our campus as fresh and breathable as possible without entirely taking away a smoker’s privilege.

Smokers who keep their promise to smoke in designated areas will not be heckled for indirectly killing nonsmokers.

Joking – but not entirely.

Studies done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that secondhand smoke consists of more than 7,000 chemicals, hundreds of which are toxins and approximately 70 of which cause cancer.

Secondhand smoke can also increase a nonsmoker’s chance of developing heart disease by a whopping 25 to 30 percent.

In all seriousness, it’s only plausible that Cal State Long Beach enforce rules fair to everyone on campus.

By having designated smoking areas, litter on campus will decline as well.

According to the New York Times article “Cigarette Butts: Tiny Trash That Piles Up,” cigarette butts make up about 28 percent of our litter and are not biodegradable.

Cigarette butts contain a plastic filter that doesn’t break down and ends up getting washed into our ocean and sewage systems.

According to the CSULB tobacco policy, we are considered to be a smoke-free campus environment.

Yet, I still see people smoking around campus.

How should these policies be enforced?

By ticketing, of course.

Every day, bikers and skateboarders are being warned or penalized for riding in non-skating zones.

If this is meant as a precaution for pedestrians, it is only sensible to protect the health of our students as well.

Students need to be proactive against out-of-designated-area smokers. With smoking occurring so casually on campus, nothing can be achieved if everyone sits back and ignores campus policy.

If this is the case, we might as well prance around in the smoke ourselves.

Tiffany Ngo is a junior journalism major and contributing writer for the Daily 49er.

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