Boston University students said they would be against a potential outdoor smoking ban in Massachusetts, despite reports that such bans significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks among smokers and non-smokers.
Many smokers and non-smokers on campus said the controlling nature of such a law could potentially violate individual rights, outweighing any positive health effects from the ban.
Researchers found that a nationwide ban on public smoking could prevent as many as 154,000 heart attacks each year, according to a Sept. 29 report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. However, most students said they don’t think an outdoor smoking ban is necessarily, because smoke disseminates easier outdoors, verse indoors where its trapped.
College of Communication freshman Holly Hinman, a non-smoker, said she would go against such a ban even though secondhand smoke has an adverse affect on her asthma.
‘Smoking is a lifestyle choice,’ she said. ‘Just because I don’t agree with it doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the right to do as they please.’
Smoker Boris Yagudayev, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said he is concerned about the effectiveness of such a law.
‘If you ban smoking outside, then students who live in the dorms would just end up sneaking around,’ he said. ‘It’s like banning alcohol. Kids just become secretive, but they still find ways to do it.’
If an outdoor smoking ban were to be enacted, students living in off-campus residences would be left with nowhere to smoke, students said. While advocates claim this is to the smoker’s own benefit, Yagudayev said the law would be going too far.
‘If you ban smoking because it can be harmful to other people, that’s one thing,’ Yagudayev said. ‘But if you ban it because of the effects on the people who smoke, that’s wrong. People should have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies.’
Others questioned how the ban would be enforced and where students living on campus would go to smoke.
CAS freshman Ian Santagata said he is personally against smoking, but thinks it is wrong for the government to dictate what a person can do to his or her own body in a public place.
‘If you can’t smoke inside, and you can’t smoke outside, then where do you smoke?’ he said. ‘People will just end up annoying others when they are looking for a place to do it.’
However, some students said they think a smoking ban would be positive. CAS junior Tom Lesney, who usually smokes in his off-campus apartment, said he understands why the ban could be beneficial in the city and on campus.
‘I honestly think the ban’s a good idea, even though most smokers probably won’t share those sentiments,’ he said.’ ‘I’m pretty sympathetic to anti-smokers. Walking behind smokers is just horrific, and cigarette butts all over campus are just disgusting.’
‘When I’m walking down the streets, I don’t really get worried about secondhand smoke, I just get out of the way,’ Santagata said.
Most students said they agreed that a ban was more about individual rights than health concerns.
‘It’s against our freedoms,’ Yagudayev said. ‘If they ban smoking, then what’s next?’