Editorial: Gasping for Air

The Advocate has been noticing a trend around here – not just noticing, but smelling: A lot of people are smoking on campus.

The problem with that is, MHCC is a smoke-free campus.

The rules about smoking here are clear: No one can smoke in any area that is campus property, including the parking lots. However, smoking in your car is kosher, because that is technically private property

Those caught smoking on campus by a public safety officer are given a warning. If caught again, they will be given a final warning and be put on a list of other former offenders, and if caught a third time, hit with a citation that is worth $15.

We think this is a sound system. No one likes to get on any sort of list, let alone a list where they possibly could be fined. However, we know for a fact there are plenty of people who aren’t seen by Public Safety and sneak in a good drag on campus. We know, because we see (and smell) them near our office, all the time.

In fact, it’s questionable whether or not the no-smoking rule is truly effective or properly enforced. There are teachers who have addressed class breaks as a time to go for a quick smoke, and some of the students we’ve talked to aren’t even aware there is such a rule here. The fact that we have a spot on campus widely known as the “smoking tree,” shows that the rule is not well enforced. We’re not asking Public Safety to hunt down everybody who pulls out a cigarette, but a little more diligence would be great.

Note that none of us at The Advocate are smokers, but we do not judge or belittle those who are. We understand that life has more than a few rough patches, and cigarettes are a way for some people to smooth them out.

We appreciate why we are a smoke free-campus. Cigarette smoke stinks, we don’t want used butts thrown everywhere, and always there is the danger of second-hand smoke.

Believe us, we would love the idea of having the campus be 100 percent smoke-free, but that’s not happening. We don’t have enough officers or enough people who care to fully enforce that rule. And so we think giving smokers a designated area (with an ashtray or two) on campus would be an amiable compromise.

There used to be booths here that would give smokers a place to go, but they were removed because they were in public areas with clouds of smoke hovering everywhere.

We think the booths should be brought back, but placed in low-traffic areas. If they returned, we would likely see fewer smokers scattered around campus because they would actually have a place to go that is reasonably close. If constructing them is a problem, putting signs and a few chains near areas were not many people pass by would also work.

If designated areas for smokers are out of the question, it should be made abundantly clear that this is a nonsmoking campus, and so too, the rules that apply. A few large signs around campus or a blurb on Mt. Hood’s main web page would be helpful to newcomers who aren’t aware. It’s a fairly important rule, and there are a lot of people who smoke, so it should be better publicized.

And then, there are e-cigarettes: These are tricky, because while they supposedly don’t produce actual smoke or affect others, there are reports starting to debunk whether or not they are harmful. We feel these should still be treated the same as cigarettes, because we can definitely smell them.

We understand the dislike of smoke, and we understand the need to smoke. We think we can live in harmony at Mt. Hood if we give smokers a spot they don’t need to walk so far to find, and still be mostly out of the way.

It just paints a bad picture of our college, allowing smokers to loiter around the campus for everyone to see.