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Syracuse University has announced a ban on smoking on its campus.The university wants to create a non-smoking culture.
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The movement to ban tobacco on college campuses, which Syracuse University joined Monday, is not just about creating a smoke- free culture in public workplaces. It is also about convincing young people to become lifetime non-smokers, said Sarah Van Orman, the president of the American College Health Association.
"It's very rare for people to stop smoking after the age of 26," said Van Orman. "There's a period of time when someone goes from being a casual or occasional user to being a full-time addict. And that usually happens around college age."
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services started the Tobacco Free College Campus Initiative in 2012 to advocate the "voluntary adoption of tobacco free policies at institutions of higher learning," according to the initiative's website. But the initiative really started three years before it got an official name from the federal government. In 2009, the American College Health Association released a position statement encouraging "colleges and universities to be diligent in their efforts to achieve a 100 percent indoor and outdoor campus-wide tobacco-free environment."
The colleges and universities listened. Very few had smoking bans in the mid-2000s, according to Health and Human Services. But by 2012, when the department started its campaign, 774 campuses already had smoke free policies. In the two years since, 704 additional campuses adopted smoke free policies, bringing the total to 1,478, with 976 banning all tobacco products.
Syracuse University became the latest school to join the movement Monday, when it announced that a tobacco ban would begin next summer. SU will release the details of its policy next week, said Patrick Neary, the president of the Graduate Student Organization.
The national initiative is more about creating a healthy smoke-free culture than convincing students not to smoke, said Cynthia Hallet, the executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. Which is why most of the coverage of SU's ban portrayed it as a culture change more than anything else.
But the less discussed purpose of the initiative is to combat the modern targeting strategy of tobacco companies, which began in 1998, said Hallet. That was the year that the Master Settlement Agreement between 46 states and the nation's five largest tobacco companies banned the companies from advertising to children younger than 18. Hallet said this ban forced the companies to shift their target audience to the next youngest demographic: 18-24 year-olds, or people of college age. "They were looking for a new generation of smokers and they need people to develop the habit while they are young," said Hallet. "It's a for profit industry."
The targeting worked, according to a 2012 Surgeon General Report on Tobacco Use among Youth and Young Adults. The report said that the number of smokers who started after turning 18 rose from 600,000 in 2002 to 1 million in 2010, around the time that the initiative to ban tobacco on campuses gained momentum.
While the national effort may emphasize clean campuses, Neary said the effort at SU is as much about encouraging students to become lifetime non-smokers. "At Cuse it's about 50-50," said Neary. "People concerned with outdoor spaces and what our community looks like care about smoke free culture. People who care about general health concerns care more about creating a generation of non-smokers."
Neary added that both purposes are symbiotic and achieved simultaneously. "A big part is creating smoke-free public places. The long-term goal is creating non-smokers," said Neary. "If we wind up 20, 30, 40 years down the road with a culture of non-use than we don't have to worry about eliminating tobacco anymore."
Van Orman said she believes the country is on a fast track to a culture of non-use. The trick is getting young people to never start. "More than 80 percent of people who smoke want to quit. Most smokers want to be non-smokers," said Van Orman.