Ohio University officials want their campus to be completely smoke free for their faculty and students. So they are implement a new series of enforcement rules that include a smoking band and a smoking re-education class for repeat offenders. [photo: Scott Barbour/Getty Images]
OU vice president for student affairs Ryan Lombardi announced in an interview with The Athens Review that his plans for eliminating all smokeable items on campus would be implemented in the coming school year. The new rule simply states that no one on the OU campus may smoke any smokeable item and that include e-cigarettes and vapor devices. So how will they implement the new ban? OU isn’t going to hire extra campus cops to become the new “Smoking Police.”
They aren’t even going to implement fines on smoking students. Instead they are relying on students to rat on each other if someone catches someone else smoking on campus or as Lombardi put it, a “community, Good-Samaritan kind of model.” Campus employers will also be required to inform the school if they catch a student smoking on their break. Those who are caught repeatedly breaking the ban will be required to attend a special “no smoking” class to help them quit.
We realize that their intentions are good because smoking is unhealthy but it’s still a personal choice and taking that right away from anyone is more than a little Draconian. They didn’t even set up smoking zones where smokers could go to get their fix away from students who don’t wish to be around them. Give them a break. Now they have to run completely off-campus just to light up and running anywhere is hard enough for smokers.
