By Rachel Brown
Dalton State College has joined the ranks of other tobacco free campuses in the University System of Georgia.
“Our original plan wasn’t to do that,” said student body president Daniel Sanchez. “What we really wanted to do was what the students wanted.”
Last fall, 67 percent of respondents with DSC e-mail addresses — including both students and faculty — voted in a survey to eliminate all forms of tobacco everywhere on campus. According to an American Lung Association report, there are 14 other University System of Georgia colleges with tobacco-free campuses.
Prior to the ban that took effect in August, campus policy for several years prohibited smoking within 25 feet of entrances. However, smokers often ignored the policy, several students said, and there were no punishments for violators. Now students can be fined $25 for the first offense, $50 for subsequent violations and a disciplinary committee hearing after the third offense. College spokeswoman Linda Massey said there are no written policies on possible outcomes on a disciplinary committee hearing and that no one has violated the ban enough to be called to a hearing. Faculty and staff face the same fines but must report to their supervisor and human resources after the third offense.
Sanchez said he believes the fact that smokers didn’t follow the policy led to students wanting an all-out ban. He said the ban seems to be keeping tobacco use out of most public areas, though he has noticed several students smoking in areas where they aren’t as easily noticed.
The start of the semester was a little bumpy. There were rumors of a protest, though none occurred, and some students started petitions to combat the anti-tobacco policy, he said.
The college initially offered free smoking cessation classes, but only two people attended each of the two offered, Sanchez said. Massey said additional classes are planned for the spring semester and will be free to college students, faculty and staff.
Policies that prohibit tobacco use altogether aren’t easy for those who are addicted to it, some say.
Dean Donehoo, administrative services director and spokesman for Murray County Schools, said he drives around the block in his truck a few times a day to light up. He said he blames himself rather than school system policies for the inconvenience of having to go off school grounds.
“When I was a teacher, I smoked before I came to work and after I came home,” Donehoo said. “Yes (it’s hard), but you learn to do it.”
Donehoo said he’s tried to quit several times without success.
Dalton Public Schools, Murray County Schools and Whitfield County Schools all have policies that prohibit tobacco use on campus.
North Georgia Health District spokeswoman Jennifer Moorer said health district officials will begin working with Murray schools this year on reinforcing their anti-tobacco policies. Efforts through a $65,000 state grant will include posting signs around schools to remind people not to use tobacco products, distributing a student-designed calendar with anti-tobacco messages and doing other promotional activities.
“(The schools) have their tobacco-free policies, but what we’re trying to do is make it so that we have more of a reinforcement of those policies,” Moorer said.
The department will work with Whitfield and Dalton schools in 2011, she said. They’ll also advertise the Georgia Tobacco Quit Line (877-270-STOP).
Whitfield County Schools spokesman Eric Beavers said public schools have discouraged tobacco use as far back as he can remember. A federal law banning indoor smoking in public schools was passed in 1994, and the school system adopted a tobacco free policy in 2001.
Employees who don’t adhere to the policy can be reprimanded, suspended or fired. Punishment for students includes in-school suspension, suspension and expulsion.
Dalton Public Schools spokeswoman Deana Farmer said that school system’s tobacco-free policies were instituted in the 1990s. None of the school systems offer free smoking cessation classes.
