Should Smoking Be Prohibited on Campus - Report Example

Should smoking be prohibited on campus? Outline: Introduction: This part will introduce the issue of college smoking bans and highlight how more and more campuses are leaning towards implementing such bans for wellbeing of the students. Discussion of causes: This part will discuss the main causes behind smoking bans imposition like the serious concern smoking raises for health of the students in addition to marring the educational atmosphere. Conclusion: This part will summarize the discussion of causes behind smoking bans and highlight why students should know why bans are actually imposed. Essay: Introduction: Smoking on campus is one of the prime challenges that colleges are facing these days. The debate of whether or not to ban smoking on campus has been there for quite a while, particularly since the start of the 21st century. Seeing more and more college campuses putting bans on smoking presently creates a huge debate platform for both defenders and proponents. While some think that such campus smoking bans mostly remain effective on certain levels in discouraging the newly independent college students to continue smoking, critics claim that college smoking bans are a product of pure authoritative rule under which no individual freedom is allowed. According to latest report, all campuses of University of California will be banning smoking as a result of which every campus would become smoke-free over the course of two years as the UC President compelled the chancellors of all the campuses nationwide to begin implementing smoke-free policies (Rojas, 2012). Discussion of causes: Defenders of campus smoking bans claim that smoking practices on campus seriously interfere with a healthy educational atmosphere and if such bans are taken seriously by more and more management authorities and strictly implemented, vivid changes can be seen happening in favor of mental and physical wellbeing of the students. When students engage in smoking on campus, they get far and far away from the main objective which brings them to the campus in the first place and that objective is nothing but expanding knowledge. Smoking compels the naïve students, who start feeling rebellious due to the fresh aroma of independence provided to them upon entry in colleges, to break free from the spell of conservative norms they are taught by their parents at homes which is why they fall for heaving smoking while absolutely disregarding the sanctity of their educational institution. Because continuing smoking habit on campus can potentially fuel a student’s mind to develop vast distance between him/herself and abiding by the educational requirements, so smoking should be absolutely banned on campus according to defenders of ban imposition. Campus smoking bans are not very old because it was not before 2000 that smoking-free campuses began surfacing in America. From this, it can be ascertained that smoking-free colleges are essentially a consequence of an increase in the health awareness and consciousness in the educated society which has occurred in the 21st century. The smoke-free spree was fuelled by the fact that no one could pass in or out of a door on any campus without going through a corridor fraught with smoke (Patterson, cited in Steinberg, 2011). Students began smoking on campus in such a staggering number that it raised huge concern for the education, health and mental wellbeing of a student which is why smoking bans are getting more and more common with every passing day. Colleges that have imposed the ban on smoking should continue with the ban because it is one of the most important health concerns. Smoking is potentially dangerous for health as it is known to be a cause of several diseases that include but are not limited to oral cancer, lungs cancer and heart attack. Smoking in colleges should be prohibited also because smoking happens to be the first step in the way towards drug addiction for a lot of students. Being young and immature, students start exploring the world of narcotics and drugs starting from smoking cigarettes and end up becoming addicts of such potentially dangerous drugs as heroin. This not only has negative implications on the health of the students, but also on their academic and professional careers as drug addicts are not able to perform on the jobs as required. In addition to that, banning smoking in college campuses is the need of the hour as we are presently living in an age in which living green is emphasized upon. While living green is conventionally associated with saving resources and protecting nature, the definition of this vast term also expands to include a smoke-free environment. Smoking destroys the natural environment both by releasing smoke in the atmosphere, and by creating pollution by throwing filters of the smoked cigarettes in the schools. In addition to the increase in the carbon content caused by smoking in the atmosphere, smoking has a repulsive impact on the students and other college mates particularly when the cigarettes are smoked in a closed room. Every student that attends a college and is a non-smoker has a right to be provided a smoke-free environment by the college and it is the college’s responsibility to address this need of the student. Smoking not only serves as an incentive for the non-smokers to indulge in this activity of immense risk for the health, but also destroys the health and safety of the environment prevalent in the schools as well as increases the carbon content in the air. Campuses that have not imposed ban on smoking must take immediate measures to impose these bans irrespective of the criticism they may incur as a result of implementation of these bans in the short-term. With allowing the students to smoke, these colleges are not only deviating from the parents’ expectations from the college as responsible institutions, but are also incurring a bad name among the society because of their lack of display of corporate social responsibility. Colleges are educational institutions. In the capacity of being educational institutions, colleges assume a moral responsibility to ethically groom the students. In order to achieve this, it is imperative that all colleges that have so far not imposed ban upon smoking, do impose the bans so that they fulfill their responsibilities. This would also have a positive impact on the overall behavior and academic performance of the students as their tendency to become drug addicts would be reduced and they would be able to spend more time on studies. Conclusion: Summing up, campus smoking bans have led many smokers to fume uncontrollably in anger which is the reason why core reasons are attempted to be briefly discussed in this paper which are used as justifications by defenders of campus smoking bans no matter how much infuriated any smoker student may be left consequently. Colleges are educational institutions and thus assume the responsibility to encourage the students to live a healthy and smoke-free lifestyle. In light of the points discussed in this paper, it can be safely argued that colleges should place a ban on smoking. Students that are addicted to smoking and think they cannot do without it have plenty of time to smoke outside the campus. In order to encourage the students to optimize on their potential to become good students in college and responsible professionals in their life later, it is imperative that colleges discourage all forms of unhealthy living, of which, smoking forms an integral part. Awareness about smoking bans should be raised among students because conflict between what is real and what is fake stirs rebellion, defiance, and aggression in students. References: Rojas, R. (2012, January 12). UC campuses will ban smoking. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/01/uc-campuses-smoke-free.html Steinberg, S. (2011, September 1). Colleges tell smokers, Youre not welcome here. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/31/smokefree.college.campus/index.html Read More