The Importance Of Smoking On College Campus

Register to read the introduction… If smokers are having to leave the safety of the campus to smoke they are put at a higher risk to be assaulted, raped, or robbed. Most smokers who live in dorms are going to leave their room for a smoke before going to bed. Putting a student on the street in a rough neighborhood late at night, sets themselves up to be a victim of a crime. A student should not have to choose between their right to smoke and their safety. Banning smoking on a college campus is asking them to do this. Safety should be the first priority for the staff and students. In the past 30 days there have been 12 crimes reported to the Fort Smith Police Department that were located on the same streets that the students frequent for their breaks (crime reports.com). Most of these crimes were assault or assault with a deadly weapon. On The University of Arkansas Fort Smith campus from the year 2008-2010, there were approximately 4 sex offenses, and 2 aggravated assaults. These are crimes that were committed on our campus! If our campus cannot keep us 100% safe, then the streets are proven to be more unsafe. As you can see this is not a good solution. We need to keep students on campus as much as possible. Not standing in the dim lit street, where they could become one of the next statistics of …show more content…
Colleges that have implemented this can see a difference in all the aspects we have talked about. It separates smoking from non smoking students. No one is forced to breath second hand smoke. Litter problems are solved because students are using the large ash trays instead of walking around and then having no where to put the cigarettes. This saves the school money and the community money on having to pay thousands of dollars to pick up trash on campus or the surrounding streets. The biggest reward for the college in allowing designated smoking areas are knowing they are doing all things possible to keep their students safe and not picking on a particular person who has a legal right to smoke. In the end it is a win win situation where all the problems are solved. People should always try to find the middle road. When one chooses to go to the extreme often conflict and problems arise. There is a price at trying to change people with a large banning and it will not work. You only move the problems to other situations or areas. It is best to accommodate all legal lifestyles, to appeal to people of all walks of life, regardless of their smoking habit. We will see a change in this trend in the next few years as time passes and people realize that there has not been a decrease in smoking, but has actually caused an increase in problems and money for community