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An UOSA Representative speaks about his bill regarding the university's smoking policy. The new bill proposes that a ban on smoking be gradually instated and to be in full effect during the next school year. Neil McGlohon/The Daily |
Student Congress passed a resolution encouraging OU President David Boren to restrict smoking on the OU-Norman campus.
Citing health concerns, unsightly litter and campus opinion, Student Congress passed the resolution with 22 in favor, 13 against and 2 abstains.
The resolution also asked that the current laws prohibiting smoking within 25 feet of entranceways be enforced.
UOSA will work to provide programs to make quitting smoking easier for the university community, the resolution stated.
The resolution also stated UOSA would support a partial ban beginning in 2011 and would consider a full ban in 2012.
A partial ban would include banning smoking on sidewalks and most areas of campus, Representative Joseph Ahrabizad said.
“Hopefully, [the board of regents will] consider banning smoking on the University of Oklahoma campus,” said Ahrabizad, political science senior.
Ahrabizad said after a ban goes into effect, people will have to leave campus to smoke.
Representative Joe Sangirardi voted against the resolution.
“A lot of my constituents, freshman, smoke, and so I don’t think I can be for this since I’m representing them,” said Sangirardi, University College freshman.
He said there is already a policy restricting smoking in front of entranceways that should be enforced, and no more rules are needed.
“This is incredibly restrictive and I think it’s wrong,” Sangirardi said.
Representative Forrest Bennett was in favor of the resolution. He said he asked a smoker to stand farther away from a door and was told to “suck it.”
Ahrabizad said the country is moving in the direction of smoking restrictions.
“Sometimes you have to do what your representatives want, sometimes you have to do what is best for your constituents,” Ahrabizad said in support of the bill.
A bill also was passed 24-9-1 to require that “any entity campaigning for or against a campus-wide referendum must also register their cause and abide by regulations in the same manner outlined for candidates.”
This bill would also limit spending by any individual entity to $1,000 per election cycle.
Before passing, the bill was amended to remove restrictions on elected members of UOSA from offering opinions on referendums.
The current rules allow anyone to campaign for any referendum, said UOSA Secretary Brett Stidham, human relations management junior.
UOSA also passed an act requiring that votes be cast in uncontested elections.
The “Always Take a Vote Act,” will make the requirements for recall petitions more reasonable, Ahrabizad said. The number of signatures required for a recall petition is based on the number of votes cast in the last election, so requiring votes in uncontested elections will affect that amount.
Also approved was $1,570 in funding to eight student organizations for programs, events and activities. International Advisory Committee ($300), Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Student Society ($275), Society of Portuguese Speakers ($250), Sooners for Israel ($200), United Students ($150), American Constitution Society ($100), Spanish Club ($200) and the student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architecture ($95) received these funds.
Nine UOSA liasons also were appointed at the meeting.
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The UOSA wants to stop smoking while the Daily Editorial Board it wants to encourage drunkenness.
(The Our View of February 24 entitled “Oklahoma needs tolerance in alcohol law” the board argued for easier access to stronger sprits.)
Why is drinking less of a scourge than smoking . If it is ok to make life harder on smokers, why make it easier on drinkers. Don’t enough alcoholics get their start in college? Like smoking, drinking causes plenty of health problems that have negative effects on health costs. Yet smoking while driving does not cause the problems that drinking and driving does.
Oklahoma used to require drinkers who wanted to drink in bars to bring their own booze with them. The bartender would take the bottle, write the patrons name on its label and then charge him to drink his own booze. Although that may sound absurd it is the same logic that drives the campaign against smoking; there is nothing wrong with making boozers (or smokers) go to a lot of trouble in order to enjoy their legal vice.
If it is Ok to persecute smokers then it should be ok to persecute drinkers.
Mustafa - your logic is completely absurd. I don't have time to explain right now but if I check back in a few hours and no one has explained I write a longer post.
Resolution of the
University of Oklahoma Faculty Senate
Approved March 8, 2010
A resolution supporting modernization of the policy for
usage of tobacco on the Norman campus
Whereas: Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmokers, who have chosen to not smoke, and;
Whereas: Secondhand smoke causes heart disease in adults, with recent studies finding that smoke-free laws reduce the rate of heart attacks by an average of 17% in just the first year after adoption, with the largest reduction occurring in non-smokers, and;
Whereas: The National Cancer Institute concludes “there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke”, and;
Whereas: Eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke on the Norman campus will have a direct and significant positive effect on the cost of employee benefits over time, and;
Whereas: Over 380 U.S. colleges and universities are completely smokefree, which in Oklahoma include The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, The University of Oklahoma Tulsa Campus, Oklahoma State University Stillwater Campus, Oklahoma State University Tulsa Campus, University of Central Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City University;
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate of The University of Oklahoma hereby requests that The University of Oklahoma develop and implement, in consultation with the University of Oklahoma Student Association, the Staff Senate, and the Faculty Senate, a policy to substantially or entirely eliminate the usage of tobacco products on the Norman campus.
Drinking is essentially banned in public and entirely banned on this campus so, in a way, this legislation would be in line with Mustafa's last outpouring of characters.
I stated facts. It is a fact that there is a politically correct crusade against smoking, while and equally dubious behavior gets a pass. Why? Don't give me jive that people can get cancer because one day, twenty years earlier, they smelled the aroma of a cigarette.
It is question of personal freedom. In order to justify restricting someone’s exercise of a personal freedom the case has to be made that such exercise negatively impacts someone else. That case can be made about many activities especially if it is hyped up with innuendos and then related to such an intangible as the cost of health care.
..with recent studies finding that smoke-free laws reduce the rate of heart attacks by an average of 17% in just the first year after adoption."
Crap. The elimination of infrequent secondhand smoke, which, at best, may cause slight health problems over a period of decades, can't be objectively measured after just one year. If secondhand smoke was that deadly, there would not be a need to conduct "recent studies," because we all know it. It would be worse than the Black Death.
Sensible people go along with this phony crusade because "it is in a good cause" and the industry is evil. But then all industry is evil… yada yada.
You must be a smoker mustafa. I'm negatively impacted when someone ahead of me on the sidewalk breathes out smoke and it blows back in my face. I'm negatively impacted when I have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into a building. Just because I don't instantly get cancer by walking past a smoker doesn't mean I'm not negatively impacted.
Also there is a difference between health problems caused over time due to exposure to something (secondhand smoke, tanning beds, asbestos) as compared to a deadly contagious disease. You can't compare the two.
I'm glad people started responding to mustafa. First of all, mustafa, I feel your argument is ludicrous and I voted against the bill yesterday!
I voted against it because second-hand smoke science has proved questionable at best. Also, in America we need to be tolerant of other people and allow them to make decisions for themselves whether we like it or not. We can't ban smoking because we don't like it - we are throwing away our right to be independent, free-thinking, decision making individuals. I do believe this trend will bite us one day and we will wake up with a government mandating that we exercise at least twice a day because it's "good for you" and to keep the cost of health-care down. Very possible, in my opinion.
It must surely hare-lip you to know that I am not a smoker. There are reasons to object to using bogus claims to restrict the freedoms of other people. As you point out what can be done to cigarettes can be done to tanning beds, skateboarding, tattooing, motorcycling riding, SUV owning, junk food eating. Hey ... skiing is dangerous and causes injuries and deaths resulting in driving up health care cost, lets outlaw skiing and having other fun.
This type of moralizing is just a way for politically correct people to justify a new snobbery. It is all about saying to someone else, "I don't like the way you live."
You may be annoyed or uncomfortable by walking through a cloud of smoke on the way to class but you are not impacted negatively health wise. But if we all re-define negative impact to include that, then virtually anything can be targeted.
Drinking certainly deserves tighter restriction, do you advocate that?
Anything that is as deadly as the Black Death, it can certainly be so compared. I maintain that it does not compare. You are the ones that do.
Again, it is just your way of being a snob.
UOSA assumes all smokers want to quit, and is taking the role of punishing those who don't. Nice. May I get some statistics on "student opinion," or is that asking too much?
The provision making it "illegal" for people to advocate on behalf of initiatives is clearly unconstitutional both for UOSA and the United States which of course supercedes the UOSA. Do these guys even bother to read their own rules? For crying out loud.
Wow OUsooners really told me off.. I think. Although some may say it looks like you agree with me. We both think the secondhand smoke-science is junk, and we both see the anti-smoking lobby as a threat to personal liberty. Yet my argument is ridiculous and yours isn't. Whatever.
So the other day some drunken vagina had to be tazered in front of the library then taken to jail where she was housed and fed on my tax dollars. And of course Julia Gilbert had to go to a lot of extra trouble to get liquored-up in order to get herself killed. But thank goodness she wasn't smoking. That would have been disgraceful.
@mustafa
"In order to justify restricting someone’s exercise of a personal freedom the case has to be made that such exercise negatively impacts someone else"
Exactly. Otherwise I know people who would have used their personal freedoms to burn your house down.
Smokers who are otherwise health buffs can now rely on healthy smoking by switching to the e-cigarette and the good benefits it brings.Here is another valuable resource for those who prefer to quit smoking:
http://www.stopsmokinghabits.com
-stopsmokinghabits-
does anyone know where i can find the proposed smoking ban bill?
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