AMY PAULIN IN THE NEWS
Monday, June 23, 2008
Bill Calls Lights Out for Dorm Smokers
By Candice Ferrette [The Journal News]
Call it the campus smokeout.
A bill that would ban smoking in college dormitories awaits the governor's signature and could go into effect in September on public and private campuses in the state.
"Many colleges have gone smoke-free already. This law will push those schools that haven't out that smoke-free window," said Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, who sponsored the Assembly bill, which passed in January. An identical bill sponsored by state Sen. Vincent Leibell, R-Patterson, passed June 16.
In order to take effect in the 2008-2009 school year, Gov. David Patterson's approval for the legislation is needed before Aug. 15.
Adrianne Harding, 21, a senior at Pace University's Pleasantville campus, said yesterday that she supports the ban.
"I would agree with it. I'm asthmatic, so when other people smoke, it affects me," said Harding, who is studying for a degree in nursing. "Even if they are across the hall, the smoke seeps through the door and comes into my room. I don't understand how people can smoke cigarettes in the dorms but can't light candles. They should definitely ban it. I don't think it's fair."
Jose Caceres, 23, who graduated this summer with a bachelor's degree in computer science and plans to pursue a master's in business, agreed.
"I think it's a good idea. Secondhand smoking is one of the largest killers," he said. "I used to have a roommate who smoked a lot, and it's absolutely a problem. It's very unhealthy, and I prefer if no one smoked around me."
The new statute amends New York's Clean Indoor Air Act to include dormitories, residence halls and other group housing facilities owned or operated by public or private colleges, universities and vocational institutions.
If a residence hall is caught violating the law, the county health departments could impose fines up to $2,000 on the college.
Off-campus units occupied by anyone other than an undergraduate student are exempt.
Many colleges offer students the option of living in smoke-free dormitories, but demand often exceeds the supply of available rooms, forcing nonsmokers to live in housing where smoking occurs. In college residence halls, smoking in one part of the dormitory causes smoke to seep into other parts of the building, chronically exposing nonsmokers to dangerous toxins, public health officials say.
"Smoking is a major cause of coronary vascular disease, including coronary heart disease and stroke," said Ed Stoppelmann, chair of the Westchester County board of directors of the American Heart Association.
Environmental or secondhand smoke causes about 35,000 coronary heart disease deaths among nonsmokers yearly, Stoppelmann said.
Students who begin smoking in college have a greater chance of being smokers later on, some researchers say.
Almost 90 percent of college students who were daily smokers and 50 percent of occasional smokers were still smoking four years later, according to a 2004 study by the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research.
Additionally, the bill aims at reducing the number of dorm fires, Paulin said.
In the past 10 years, two college residential hall fires in the state have resulted in fatalities, which Paulin said was "two too many."
A study in 2000 by the Governor's Task Force on Campus Fire Safety reported an average of more than 300 fires per year on New York college campuses, 160 of which were serious enough to require a call to the fire department.