Before leaving MSU’s main campus for my clinical rotations as a third year medical student, I feel compelled to express an ongoing problem. Starting my first day at MSU, I was bombarded by what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls “a known carcinogen.” We now lag behind the University of Michigan, Hope College, Lansing Community College, Grand Rapids Community College and countless Michigan businesses in banning or planning to ban smoking on campus, which is an insult to an otherwise prestigious institution of higher education.
For those who are unaware, there is a policy which restricts smoking within 25 feet of any campus building entrance. However, this policy, which merits a civil infraction (according to MSU’s Handbook on Policies and Ordinances), is not, as far as I’ve observed, enforced. This denotes the core of the problem. The students of MSU are not voicing their concern. We need to make noise.
I first started by asking (very kindly, I might add) that people who smoke outside of campus buildings step 25 feet from the entrance. Their answers were never comforting and they never complied. I have personally requested that the deans of my school alert the supervisors of Fee Hall, in particular, of the smoking policy on campus.
The deans of my school sent out e-mails and the entrances (and therefore classrooms and hallways) were clear of smoke for a few weeks. Unfortunately, after a few weeks, the smokers began returning to their usual position just outside our classrooms. This led me to, finally, request the police patrol the area to enforce the policy.
Will all of these efforts work in the long run? I have no idea. But I do know that if we become indifferent to the situation, my efforts will have been to no avail and, inevitably, the smokers outside of Fee Hall will continue to smoke within the prohibited radius.
This situation may be replicated across campus if nothing is done to permanently make our voices heard. As an educational institution, should we not have the audacity to claim a right to have the most basic of physiologic behaviors, breathing, protected from the harms imposed by secondhand smoke? At medical school at MSU, we are told nearly every day about the about the deleterious effect smoking has on our patients and second hand smoke has on those around them.
I am requesting that you kindly ask smokers at MSU to move away from the entrances of doors and perhaps even not to smoke on campus at all. If you have them, go to the board of trustees with your complaints.
You have the right to both do this and, if the situation calls for it, contact the police to enforce the rules with a civil infraction.
The more noise we as students can make on this issue, the faster we will be able to rise to the standards that other institutions have set for us.
Dave Hotwagner
second-year College of Osteopathic Medicine student
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