Many students can’t watch a movie now-a-days without seeing a character smoking. Whether it’s the badass hero or the trashy loser from the trailer park, somebody probably has a cigarette in their hand. Even while smoking has decreased over the past five years due to severe warnings and campaigns against tobacco, many college students still smoke cigarettes and chew spit tobacco, whether it be a daily habit or a social thing with friends while having a drink at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Ashland University has created a Tobacco Task Force in hopes that in the next few years AU’s campus will be tobacco-free.

“We have formed a Tobacco Task Force on campus to look at our current policy, how it is being enforced, and how we can offer education and cessation interventions on campus,” Linda Roeder, Director of the Student Health Center, said in an email at the beginning of winter break.

Janel Molnar, director of Recreational Services, was one of the many people vital to starting the task force. During the spring last year, Molnar, as well as other staff members, went to a seminar about tobacco use on campuses and decided to start a task force on AU’s campus comprised of many different people.

“We have a great task force composed of various students, faculty, staff and community members who we feel will allow us to reach our goal,” Molnar said in an email message a few days ago.

Health and Human Services News made public a press release Dec. 9th, 2010 stating that “exposure to tobacco smoke causes immediate damage,” according to a new surgeon general’s report. The report also discussed the ways that cigarettes are made to be addictive because “the design and contents of current tobacco products make them more attractive and addictive than ever before.”

When students heard about the possibility of AU turning into a tobacco-free campus, some were not happy about it.

“I’ll be pissed,” Junior Colin Rockhold said. “Tobacco doesn’t impair someone like alcohol does so therefore it shouldn’t be a problem on campus.”

Junior Andy Gandert couldn’t agree more.

“Yes, I would be mad,” Gandert said. “I smoke and I feel I have the right to outside.”

Roeder says that tobacco is a problem on campus, and that secondhand smoke is a real concern.

“We aren’t trying to be judgmental, just protect health,” Roeder said in an interview.

Rockhold suggests that there can be solutions without banning cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

“There should be designated smoking places if the campus is worried about it, but banning it would be stupid,” Rockhold said. “And dipping doesn’t affect anyone else.”

Gandert also suggested that there be designated smoking areas, if AU is worried about secondhand smoke and while he doesn’t chew himself, he doesn’t think AU should have the ability to take that away either.

Roeder argues that dipping can affect other people. What if they spit in the hallway or a bottle they have spills?

“If we spill tomato juice on the floor it will stain just the same,” Rockhold said. “So should we just ban everything that will stain the floor? No.”

Roeder knows that students will take a while to warm up to the idea and it’s not going to be easy.

“It might be easier for faculty and staff,” Roeder said. “They can leave campus…we want to provide a lot of education about it, the more you see it and here it, it sinks in. Hopefully it will be more easily accepted. When making changes we offer things to help quit.”

Roeder went on to explain that employees already get free nicotine replacements when they quit and she is hoping to be able to provide the same deal to students in the near future. Students can go to the Health Center and talk with staff to determine what the best options are for quitting.

The Tobacco Task Force still has a long way to go. There are questions about when people, such as a wedding party, rent out Upper Convo. If the campus is tobacco-free, does that mean that the guests won’t be allowed to smoke? Faculty and staff would also be required to wait until they are off campus to smoke or chew. Roeder says that many campuses have achieved a smoke-free campus; however tobacco-free is a lot harder.

Students interested in learning what the Tobacco Task Force is doing are encouraged to go to the next meeting.

“If you want to help the cause come by,” Roeder said. “We would love to hear your ideas.”