November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and many North Carolina colleges and universities have recently launched campaigns against smoking on campus.
At Elon University, smoking is banned within 30 feet of any building on campus or in Rhodes Stadium. Students and faculty must keep the campus clean by throwing away their smoking waste in designated areas.
But despite the tobacco awareness and regulations at Elon and elsewhere in the state, North Carolina still ranks highly among states with the highest concentration of tobacco users, according to the North Carolina Alliance for Health.
This discrepancy prompted Elon’s Colleges Against Cancer club to team up with SPARKS Nov. 5 for “Smoke Out for a Cure” in Speakers Corner to raise awareness of the dangers of smoking.
Smoke Out for a Cure
While students snacked on free food at the event, they were asked to sign a petition advocating for a smoke-free campus, and has to answer trivia questions about smoking and lung cancer before they could receive their food.
“We collaborated with SPARKS because they aim to promote overall wellness around Elon’s campus,” said junior Jennifer Gehrin, executive member of the Colleges Against Cancer fundraising committee. “They are also a large, well-known organization that would be interested in attaining the same goal that Colleges Against Cancer hoped for with this event, which is awareness.”
Colleges Against Cancer also hoped to raise awareness of its organization and the importance of cancer research. Gehrin believes that smoking at Elon is a major issue that needs to be addressed.
“Smoking is definitely still a problem on campus — however, it seems to have greatly decreased within the past few years due to the increased knowledge that we have about the dangers of smoking,” Gehrin said.
Gehrin found that the first step in decreasing the number of smokers on campus is publicly raising awareness. It also helps for smokers to have a non-smoker friend or role model.
“In order to decrease the number of smokers, the promotion of the non-smoking movement through individuals that smokers can relate to is critical,” Gehrin said. “For example, if someone who is a smoker sees one of their friends promoting the smoke-free movement, he or she will be much more likely to pay attention and approach that individual with questions.”
But some students don’t think limiting student tobacco use is a good idea. Senior Colby Chatterton said as a tuition-paying student, he thinks he should be able to smoke on campus, just as he does in other public places.
“I completely understand why they have the policies, especially because of littering and second-hand smoking reasons,” Chatterton said. “But more restrictions, like banning smoking, is more of an issue.”
If students or faculty have thought about quitting and are not sure where to begin, there are resources available in North Carolina, including a smoking hotline, 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
“Our program provides coaching calls that are scheduled,” said Tracy Spone, support line coach for the North Carolina smoking hotline. “We can call people, check on how they are doing and their progress thus far towards quitting. As we go through the process, they can always call in anytime for support. We also provide information about smoking medications and what to do when individuals have cravings.”
Smokers can also visit the website www.becomeanex.org to create a step-by-step plan with professionals to quit.
Colleges Against Cancer has another upcoming event and all profits will go towards cancer research. The organization is hosting Acoustic for the Cure at The Oak House Oct. 12, and tickets are being sold at Moseley tables and at the door. The cost is $3 for one person and $5 for two people.
Tobacco in North Carolina
According to the College Tobacco Free Campus Initiative, “as of Oct. 5, there are 1,620 completely smoke-free campuses and 1,130 of those schools are fully tobacco-free.”
On Oct. 5 in Raleigh, 33 leaders from historically black colleges from around the country gathered together at Shaw University to launch a campaign against smoking on campuses.
According to a Raleigh News & Observer article, smoking is the top cause of death among African-Americans, surpassing all other leading causes including traffic crashes, homicides, drug use and alcohol use combined.
Along with the campaign, there was a two-day Tobacco-Free HBCU Campus Initiative conference that provided workshops for students, covering tobacco’s harmful effects and ways to educate people about them.
North Carolina Alliance for Health and Duke University sponsored “Race to Quit, NC” which offers “assistance and resources that North Carolinians need to cross the finish line and join the quitters circle.”
“One of the best ways to help people from using tobacco is to help them find good, solid smoking cessation programs,” said Peg O’Connell, chair of the Tobacco Prevention Committee for the North Carolina Alliance for Health. “North Carolina has a very good quit line. We know that if you combine replacement therapy and counseling from the quit line, people have a higher chance of staying quit.”
Still, according to North Carolina Alliance for Health, more than 20 percent of adults in North Carolina are cigarette smokers.
“I have heard from residents that there were a lot of tobacco farms in North Carolina,” Spone said. “It has been more promoted or culturally accepted here for a number of years. That is my guess to the high number of smokers.”
In addition to cultural acceptance, North Carolina also has a cheaper rate for cigarette packs compared to other states.
“Our cigarettes are fairly cheap. If cigarettes cost a dollar or so more, people might make another choice,” O’Connell said.
Smoking on campus
Another reason behind the continued presence of smoking on campus could be the rise in popularity of electronic cigarettes across the country. The e-cigarettes are designed to deliver flavored nicotine and other chemicals to users in vapor form rather than smoke.
“There is a lack of research on how effective vaping is for quitting,” Spone said. “The advertising for e-cigarettes is that it helps people quit tobacco, but the research has not shown that yet. However, the concern is that people go into vaping trying to quit and end up going back to smoking.”
Many believe that vaping is considerably safer than smoking, but there is no evidence yet to support that theory.
“Nicotine is extraordinarily addictive,” O’Connell said. “If you start experimenting with e-cigarettes, it is very easy to transfer to a cheaper version of nicotine, which is a cigarette. Anyone who says that e-cigarettes are safe is wrong, anyone who says that people can’t get addicted to e-cigarettes is wrong.”
O’Connell isn’t the only one who’s worried. The North Carolina General Assembly is also concerned about e-cigarettes’ attractiveness to youths.
In a 2012 study, the North Carolina Alliance for Health found that an estimated 160,000 students who reported using e-cigarettes had never used conventional cigarettes.
“People who have never smoked try vaping and maybe go from there to smoking because they get hooked on the nicotine,” Spone said.