MC Tobacco-Free

After almost a decade of efforts to make Montgomery Community College tobacco-free, starting on August 1, 2008 all tobacco products were banned from MC’s three campuses. That means all college owned property, indoors and out are off limits to tobacco users. Nope, you can’t use tobacco products in the parking lots, in the previously designated smoking areas or on the soccer fields – you can’t use them anywhere on MC grounds. The college’s tobacco-free policy comes after years of trying to limit tobacco use. First, tobacco use in buildings was banned. Then, there was the 25 foot rule. Now, it is totally banned. If you think a couple of administrators, fed up by unruly youth, decided to take measures to eventually ban tobacco use, that simply isn’t true. The wider community chimed in on this one. And all MC members are affected, from the custodians to your professors. One just wonders: Will it work? There are Healthy Campus Advocates roaming the campuses warning tobacco users to stop using their products or else… Or else what? They’ll get a slap on the wrist? We are told repeat offenders will be formally admonished. Using tobacco products could be treated the same way as bringing an illegal substance on campus. That means the worst punishment for users would be expulsion. Don’t worry, you’d have to be caught many times before it ever came to that. Besides, what’s stopping tobacco users from walking off campus to smoke? Many hospitals have similar tobacco-free policies and the users simply caper off the hospital grounds to smoke. One can see it being a nuisance to neighboring communities, but as long as it’s not on college property, you can smoke, chew and spit all the livelong day. It’s too soon to say whether the tobacco-free policy will be a success, but after so many years of culminating successes in favor of the policy, one is apt to think it will be.

Sohayl Vafai

Associate Editor