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Bars and restaurants in the Columbia area must be smoke-free by Oct. 1. USC Upstate will be smoke-free Nov.20. Will USC be next?
If Lauren Vincent has a say, it will. Vincent, a 2007 alumnus and current staff member, serves on the Healthy Carolina Taskforce on Tobacco. She's currently leading a drive to stamp out tobacco usage on the entire campus.
"I don't think it's a matter of if, but it's a matter of when," Vincent said of her goal of eliminating tobacco on campus. "With USC Upstate going completely tobacco free, it's really exciting that we could do this on the Columbia campus."
In collaboration with the National Smoke-Out Day, USC Upstate will go completely smoke-free on Nov. 20. The university said it hopes to improve health campus-wide with the ban.
USC 's mission to reduce tobacco use began in 2006, when the university, under former President Andrew Sorensen, implemented a 25-foot smoking buffer zone around all buildings.
Smokers were briefly outraged, but the university said it doesn't have too many problems enforcing the policy these days.
For smokers, Vincent said the university wants to help. USC currently offers a free smoking cessation class, in conjunction with Richland Memorial Hospital. Vincent said the university is also looking to purchase more smoking cessation medicine for students, faculty and staff.
The effects of smoking on campus are far-reaching. Each year, more than 35,000 people die in the United States from secondhand smoke, according to the American Cancer Society, and more than one million others are affected with pneumonia, exacerbated asthma, lung and ear infections and other conditions due to the smoke.
Now that Columbia area bars and restaurants are implementing the no-smoking policy, Vincent said now is as good as time as ever for the university to enact a policy of its own.
"So many of our students are restaurant and bar workers or they go out into the industry, and we would really like to show administrators the college health impact that'll have," Vincent said.
Vincent is confident the university will completely eliminate smoking on campus. Harris Pastides, the university's new president, was formerly a faculty member in the school of public health. She thinks his background will help their chances of eliminating smoking on campus.
"We won't have to sell him on the idea because he understands that secondhand smoke is dangerous to people's health," Vincent said. "The science and evidence is there."
Some students around campus said they saw both sides of the issue.
"Personally, I don't smoke and it aggravates and annoys me," Dallas Gordon, a second-year exercise science student, said. "But there could possibly be just a designated area where smokers wouldn't disturb others."
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