Healthy Carolina is once again trying to move forward with the “Tobacco Free USC” initiative, without consulting the student body or examining the feasibility of their plan.
Healthy Carolina is once again trying to move forward with the “Tobacco Free USC” initiative, without consulting the student body or examining the feasibility of their plan.
The initiative is, at best, a weak PR campaign. As we’ve previously pointed out, banning all forms of tobacco on our large and extensive urban campus isn’t at all feasible and it’s a waste of both our campus resources and our time. Plus, do we really want USC police officers stopping to write up a smoker while, around the block, yet another creep has his pants around his ankles, touching himself in public?
What really irks us is that Healthy Carolina is doing all of this without really hearing what students think. It reached out to our Student Government for help, but time after time our elected students have shown that they lack the ability to really connect with their fellow students. Not that it would matter anyway. Healthy Carolina’s determined to truck on with this process regardless of any student objection.
We’re still mystified as to why it’s pursing this initiative so ferociously. Yes, smoking is unhealthy, but so are the calorie-ridden meals at the fast food restaurants in Russell House. If this passes, will it come after Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut next? Good luck. (But at this point, it wouldn’t surprise us.)
And our biggest objection of all is still that no one has offered any idea of how “Tobacco Free USC” could be enforced. Even if it does pass, without any real crackdown, it’ll be little more than a mission statement. While we understand that Healthy Carolina wants our university to emulate its name, it shouldn’t dictate what we choose to do with our own bodies, especially without our consent.