From the 808 to the 503
Adjusting to life in Oregon while keeping "one foot on sand."
Tyler Oshiro
Issue date: 10/1/09 Section: Opinion
It is all too common, as I walk down to the library from Clark on any given day, to run into the toxic chemicals emitted by smokers casually exhaling their ashy breath beneath the "shoe tree."
As a non-smoker, I find the experience unpleasant, and most times, I try to avoid the passing altogether. However, it appears these smokers are nearly everywhere: the corners of buildings, near the benches, under the trees; it is virtually impossible to avoid smokers altogether on this campus. It could be the fact that our campus is small, or that there are simply more smokers here, but it seems to me that there is a much higher usage of both cigarettes, and the socially exulted "hookah" at Pacific than back home in Hawaii.
In 2006, Hawaii passed a Smoke-Free Law banning smoking from enclosed public spaces, places of employment, and within 20 feet of doorways, windows and ventilation systems. Oregon's equivalent is a mere 10 feet away. The students here seem wary of this law, though, and are careful to stay well enough away from any buildings; thus, the problem is not the second-hand smoke within the buildings, but rather the experience of passing through clouds of foul carcinogens when simply walking around campus.
Here are the facts. According to a recent survey, for the last decade, nearly 30% of all college students in the United States have smoked at least one form of tobacco (i.e. cigarettes, hookah, pipe, etc.) I'd like to think that here, there are fewer smokers, but I'm sure my psychology professor would kill me for falling prey to the availability heuristic. Inhaling second-hand smoke from a cigarette means inhaling all of the same fatal toxins as the smoker himself: 250 poisonous chemicals, along with 50 carcinogens. Sure, we'd like to believe that inhaling second-hand smoke isn't enough to kill, but the data speaks in contradiction to that claim as well. Every year, 53,800 deaths are attributed to second-hand smoke.
All of this information can be easily resourced from a State of Hawaii brochure detailing the dangerous effects of smoking. Oregon, again, fails to respond in kind. It simply seems that the lack of effort on the part of the government directly affects the higher percentage of smokers.
As a non-smoker, I find the experience unpleasant, and most times, I try to avoid the passing altogether. However, it appears these smokers are nearly everywhere: the corners of buildings, near the benches, under the trees; it is virtually impossible to avoid smokers altogether on this campus. It could be the fact that our campus is small, or that there are simply more smokers here, but it seems to me that there is a much higher usage of both cigarettes, and the socially exulted "hookah" at Pacific than back home in Hawaii.
In 2006, Hawaii passed a Smoke-Free Law banning smoking from enclosed public spaces, places of employment, and within 20 feet of doorways, windows and ventilation systems. Oregon's equivalent is a mere 10 feet away. The students here seem wary of this law, though, and are careful to stay well enough away from any buildings; thus, the problem is not the second-hand smoke within the buildings, but rather the experience of passing through clouds of foul carcinogens when simply walking around campus.
Here are the facts. According to a recent survey, for the last decade, nearly 30% of all college students in the United States have smoked at least one form of tobacco (i.e. cigarettes, hookah, pipe, etc.) I'd like to think that here, there are fewer smokers, but I'm sure my psychology professor would kill me for falling prey to the availability heuristic. Inhaling second-hand smoke from a cigarette means inhaling all of the same fatal toxins as the smoker himself: 250 poisonous chemicals, along with 50 carcinogens. Sure, we'd like to believe that inhaling second-hand smoke isn't enough to kill, but the data speaks in contradiction to that claim as well. Every year, 53,800 deaths are attributed to second-hand smoke.
All of this information can be easily resourced from a State of Hawaii brochure detailing the dangerous effects of smoking. Oregon, again, fails to respond in kind. It simply seems that the lack of effort on the part of the government directly affects the higher percentage of smokers.
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