Miami University recently announced that it will ban smoking on its four campuses starting in the fall of 2008, indoors and out. This decision comes a year after Ohio voters approved a statewide smoking ban in public indoor buildings.
The issue with this campus-wide ban and others like it is the question about its true purpose. Organizations and corporations appear to be concerned with the personal health of their employees, students and faculty; however, this ban has just as much to do with reducing health care costs. While there is little evidence to support smoking, financial considerations are chipping away at personal freedoms, including the right to smoke.
In 2007, Miami University formed an ad-hoc committee to decide on a new smoking policy. The committee agreed that a campus-wide ban was necessary. A random poll of more than 6,000 Miami University students showed that just over 51 percent supported a total campus ban on smoking. However, smokers may have been simply outnumbered by non-smokers in the poll. According to public records, the total enrollment at the Oxford campus alone is 16,757. This means that over 10,000 students were either not asked their opinion, or could not be reached. This does not include the population of Miami’s other three campuses.
Another committee study showed that only 18% of students were frequently affected by smoke on campus. What the study does not identify is where these students were and the circumstances of their exposure to secondhand smoke. The committee assumes that non-smokers are being bothered by smoke throughout the entire campus. This information could be misleading due to the lack of details. While Miami University does appear to want to hear both sides of this issue, evidence suggests that the studies and surveys are merely a way to justify an agenda to curb health care costs.
Miami University is not shy about its true reason for the ban. “The long-term impact (of the ban) is to lessen insurance costs,” said Carole Johnson, a spokeswoman with the university’s News and Public Information Office. “The first goal is to make a healthy environment and reduce costs to employees and the university.” When asked if the recent Ohio smoking ban served as a catalyst for the decision, Johnson said, “In a nutshell, we have been looking at a ban for a number of years. Yes, it definitely acted as a catalyst.”
If the university has been considering a smoking ban for years, why go to the trouble of creating an ad-hoc committee, and conducting surveys on campus? The answer to this question is the fear of infringing upon personal freedoms, an issue the ad-hoc committee addressed in its report. The committee looked into designated smoking areas. The reason it was not considered, according to Johnson, was “where would you put it? If you put it in one area, everyone will go there.” One way to reduce non-smokers’ exposure to second-hand smoke would be a central area for smoking.
There’s little evidence that secondhand smoke outdoors poses a health risk to non-smokers. The U.S. Surgeon General’s report on the dangers of second-hand smoke concludes that adults exposed to secondhand smoke at work or home have a 20 to 30 percent increased chance of developing lung cancer; however, the report does not specifically address the dangers of second-hand smoke in designated, outdoor areas.
Some companies are requiring job applicants to disclose whether they are smokers on their applications. Those who are honest enough to check “yes” in that box are essentially telling the company they do not want to work for them. The question now becomes, “What next?” Will corporations and other institutions soon require that their employees or students be in perfect health? At Miami University, the next health target may be obesity. “The company’s goal is to encourage healthier lives, such as weight management,” Johnson said.