University of Michigan's July 1 smoking ban intended 'to create a culture of health'
Dan Montalvo, a University of Michigan staff member, said he favors the smoking ban. He plans to quit when the ban goes into effect July 1.
Angela Cesere | AnnArbor.com
Except Montalvo, a staff member on the facilities team at the law school, said he’s resolved to quit rather than bother with taking his habit off of U-M property.
“I just know it’s time,” the half-pack-a-day smoker said. “It’s time for everyone to quit, actually.”
The on-again, off-again smoker, 49, has been lighting up in years-long spurts since he was 15. The ban, he said Wednesday from a bench in the Law Quadrangle, is the nudge he needed.
A scenario like Montalvo’s is just what U-M had in mind when it began exploring a smoking ban about two years ago.
“The premise of the campus going smoke free is to create a culture of health, to discourage people from taking up smoking end to encourage people who are smokers to quit,” said Dr. Robert Winfield, U-M's chief health officer.
The ban won’t be enforced with tickets from the U-M Department of Public Safety, Winfield said. Officers won’t patrol tailgates in search of smokers flouting the new rule.
Instead, it's essentially voluntary, enforced via various signs and the idea that people on campus will respectfully ask smokers to stamp out their cigarettes.
Still, repeated violation of the ban could lead to a workplace violation for an employee or disenrollment of a student under already in-place disciplinary procedures.
People who finds others smoking on campus could initiate a disciplinary process by filing a complaint against individuals who defy the new rule.
“It’s in the realm of possibility, but it’s certainly not our intent to have a heavy hand of the law,” Winfield said. “Our intent is to encourage people to live healthy lives.”
The ban is expected to save the university health care costs, Winfield said, and reduce absenteeism among employees. Smokers miss three to five more work days per year on average than non-smokers, he said studies have shown.
But it's going to cost U-M up front. The three-year impact on the facilities budget is $167,500, while a tobacco consultation service to help employees quit has an annual price tag of $51,975.
U-M is offering employees hundreds of dollars of discounts in generic smoking cessation products, as well various options for free services to help them quit. Students can get discounts, too, so long as they work with a free tobacco cessation program.
A $25,000 marketing campaign has been underway for the last year included to promote the ban and options for help quitting to students and employees, Winfield said.
Winfield said “No smoking” signs up around campus and word-of-mouth should spread the word to visitors, like conference guests. But the policy is also built into these groups’ contracts so they’re made aware of the smoke-free campuses before they arrive.
And an untold amount of outdoor ashtrays still need to be taken out, some of them moved to the perimeter of campus.
Some business owners have worried about the impact of the ban on air quality and pollution near their shops, Winfield said. The university will accommodate them, possibly send cleaning crews to new places smokers congregate and litter with cigarette butts. Why now?
U-M will go smoke-free July 1.
Angela Cesere | AnnArbor.com
U-M has chipped away at the places smokers can light up since the late 1990s.
Smoking on the medical campus and in campus buildings has been against the rules since 1998, a dozen years before the ban on workplace smoking became law statewide in May 2010.
Student government for residence halls did away with smoking rooms in 2003.
Yet smoke near the halls still bothered some students. Their complaints to Winfield about staff members’ cigarette smoke drifting into their residence hall windows started the ban about three years ago, Winfield said.
“While this was all triggered by trying to address the smoking coming into windows for the residents halls, it evolved into something much larger, which was to try and address our growing commitment that the president (Mary Sue Coleman) articulated in April 2004 to a really healthy campus,” Winfield said.
U-M rolled out MHealthy, a multidimensional effort meant to encourage healthy habits among faculty, staff, students and visitors, beginning in 2005. Four years later, a committee got to work on a campus smoking ban.
Winfield and others studied what has and hasn't worked at large public universities' existing campus-wide bans elsewhere in the country, and how to construct a ban that was "respectful" to smokers, Winfield said.
On July 1, U-M’s campuses in Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint will be three of 15 public university campuses in the state to go smoke-free.
But around the state, numerous community colleges and private universities have already instituted smoke-free campus policies.
Opinions on the ban
Opinions around campus on the smoke-free initiative varied.
One student puffing on a cigarette while strolling across on the Diag Wednesday said he’d welcome the ban as an improvement to public health and air quality on campus. Smoking is a new habit he picked up while studying abroad in China - one he’d rather not keep, said the student, declining to be named.
Two other smokers didn’t want to share their names, but did share their thoughts. A campus visitor smoking in the School of Social Work’s courtyard characterized the new rule as “too much government.”
An employee taking a smoke break shrugged and suggested employees have no choice but to follow rules set by their employer.
Others are thrilled about the smoke-free campus on the horizon.
Beatriz Pereira, a doctoral student studying consumer behavior with the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, sat outside of the business school last week with a friend. She doesn’t smoke; her grandfather died of lung cancer.
She said the school has banned smoking around the building’s entrance, people on campus do so anyway.
“It’s an invasion of citizens’ space,” she said.
She’s curious to see how enforcement of the ban will work at U-M.
Jeff Golds, a recent law school alumni, chatted with friends at the Law Quad last week. He hates the smell of smoke and favors the smoke-free initiative, he said.
Nearby, Montalvo finished his cigarette. If the ban works, it could be one of the last packs he buys. He said he even plans to start exercising again once he quits "cold turkey" July 1.
Juliana Keeping covers general assignment and health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at julianakeeping@annarbor.com or 734-623-2528. Follow Juliana Keeping on Twitter
Comments
mw
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 12:39 p.m.
The idea of banning smoking not to protect people from secondhand smoke but 'to create a culture of health' is just creepy and Orwellian. I've never been a smoker, but I'm thinking maybe I should buy a pack and take a stroll as a protest against the health nannies wanting to run everybody's lives. I think it's inevitable that further paternalistic rules 'for your own good' will be forthcoming -- probably, as others have suggested, focused on weight control. And, of course, discouraging smokers and the overweight from taking or staying in jobs at UM will save money (a bit like Walmart's plan to make all employees take a turn at collecting carts in the parking lot).
retiree1
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 2:47 a.m.
By the way, smoke is smoke, regardless of where it comes from, and it goes into your lungs and it causes serious problems, like cancer, destroys lung tissue, and impaits the throat. So, death is a proven fact and unless you have witnessed the sad effects of stage four cancer, you will never understand. If you don't have the stomach, then go to a hospital and observe an autopsy of a smoler and I will guarantee you will see black charcol, as opposed to a nice pink color. By the way, I detest booze as it destroys the liver, among other things. If any of you do the research I suggested in earlier posts, you will see actual tests comparing alcohol versus POT, and POT in fact causes mnore damage.
retiree1
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 2:37 a.m.
I forwarded in the previous post the places where good solid research exists and all you need to do is go for it. After reading it, you will ask, why in the heck wasn't this info published thirty years ago. In fact it was. But it did not take long for the liberals in this country, including the media, to squash any further reports. All these media and politician turkeys are high on drugs, and they don't give a hoot if the victim are young kids.
mohomed
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 2:31 a.m.
UM won't drug test any of their employees except public safety officers (yep Doctor's and nurses can do all kinds of drugs) but they demand no human being smoke outside on their own property. I like UM but this might be a little hypocritical on their part.
Mike D.
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 1:12 p.m.
Bus drivers get tested. Not that it seems to help.
trespass
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 11:02 a.m.
They don't drug test public safety officers either. Just see the Campus Police Officer who was arrested and plead guilty to cocaine possession earlier this year. Actually, the only one who are drug tested are contract construction workers because the UM requires the construction companies to test.
5c0++ H4d13y
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 1:29 a.m.
How far can they go in restricting legal activities? What next, a ban on unprotected sex? Maybe an upper limit on BAC to be on campus? How about a ban on eating too much candy?
Stephanie
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 9:18 p.m.
"It's in the realm of possibility, but it's certainly not our intent to have a heavy hand of the law," Winfield said. "Our intent is to encourage people to live healthy lives." The ban is expected to save the university health care costs, Winfield said, and reduce absenteeism among employees. Smokers miss three to five more work days per year on average than non-smokers, he said studies have shown. These two paragraphs say so much.....All I can say is RIDICULOUS. On both accounts.
Bear
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:12 p.m.
" to encourage people who are smokers to quit," HOGWASH! To force people to quit is a more honest statement. PC people think they have the right to dictate what others should do. Pc people, they know not what they do, But they feel justified in thinking, That YOU should do it too! PC people P me off!
timjbd
Tue, Jun 28, 2011 : 2:35 p.m.
YOU have a right to force me to breathe your smoke?
Tom Joad
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:51 p.m.
Your right to smoke ends at my nose. The ban on workplace smoking has only forced them out on the street and sidewalk. Why should non-smokers be subjected to a gauntlet of smokers while simply trying to walk down the sidewalk? You want to smoke? do it your own home and on your own property.
timjbd
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:21 p.m.
Maybe this year at the Art Fair no one will poke me with a lit cigarette. That would be a nice change.
retiree1
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 5:33 p.m.
I must note that our President Obama has admitted to being a closet smoker and former user of POT and maybe more lethal drugs. If you watch him attempt to speak, he always uses teleprompters - and he even misses reading those correctly. Lately, he has made several embarassing misques. I don't think Obama is capable of speaking spontanously and without his beloved teleprompters. But, it was the Presidents former POT use that has most of us disturbed, as it has clouded his judgement - which seems a common place event for drug and POT users. As the most powerful man on planet earth, should his mental facilities be checked, as he could plunge this nation into war at a drop of a water. Very scary situation, isn't it?
Stephanie
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 9:20 p.m.
Why is it that somehow every story has something to do with Obama???? Even when it has NOTHING to do with Obama? Get a grip.......on reality.
Bear
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:33 p.m.
Well, at least he can put a logical sentence together, unlike our last president. And just what does that have to do with the article? Do you have a hard time following the subject? And 'misque'???? that word is spelled with a 'c' or else it would sound like "MISK". Mental facilities should be checked? Why, are you looking for a room? I believe the term is 'mental faculties'. and one other critique, "most of us"? Just who is this 'most of us'? I only hear you talking, and rather badly at that. When did you quit using POT? Oh, and if you think that the POTUS is the 'most powerful man on planet earth', you've got a lot of education to catch up on, because that just isn't so. In fact that statement is hilariously wrong. The scariest situation is that folks like you are allowed to vote & procreate.
deb
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 7:20 p.m.
are you serious?
trespass
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:58 p.m.
Not as scary as beloved President Reagan's Alzeimer's disease.
retiree1
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 5:23 p.m.
I trust this new ban on smoking includes the killer drug - POT. It seems to me that many years ago, Ann Arbor permitted the legal use of POT - in complete violation of Federal Law. Is that still true? Anyway, over the years, I have lost ten former friends due to the use of POT. Four of these people died from suicide, three died as a result of a POT high while driving, one died as a result of being high while in the mist of a drug transaction gone wrong, and two died as a result of lung desease. Equally tragic are the thousands of kids getting addicted at the ages of 12 through the early 20s, and completely destroying their lives. Nowdays, these kids can purchase POT and other drugs in the school hallways and that includes Michigan schools. Too soon after these kids first exposure to POT, they move up to more devilish killer drugs. Then they sit around like zombies, if they aren't dead. It is all so sad. If any of these kids is to survive these POT and other drugs destructive forces, they will need to be sent to a tough love boot camp in Nevada or California for a year, and it will be costly - try $100,000 plus. I have spent quite some time in the messed up state of California with physicians at the Cedar Sinai Hospital, and they are dead set against the use of POT by anyone for any reason - including medical. There is a lots of real research on the destructive effects of POT, and if anyone were to challenge the above statements, let me recommend research from the Donner Medical Research Institute at the University of California - Berkeley, the US Army, Oxford College, UK, etc. Oh yes, smoking anything causes cancer.
trespass
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:50 p.m.
@Bear- that is not true because state law allows for medical marijuana but the campus police will arrest someone even if they have a medical marijuana card. That is because the federal grants require that they follow federal "drug free workplace" assurances.
Bear
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:26 p.m.
tresspass, no the UofM police do NOT enforce federal law. They enforce Michigan State Law.
Bear
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:24 p.m.
You are joking, right? Do you have incontrovertible evidence to support your wild claims? And no, smoking 'anything' doesn't necessarily cause cancer. You sound like a crack pot.
trespass
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:56 p.m.
The UM police enforce federal drug laws. Ann Arbor police enforce city ordinance, which classifies possession of marijuana as a civil offense, which is ticketed and fined. UM claims that it must enforce federal law to comply with drug free workplace assurances that are required to recieve federal grant money. It was one of the main reasons that UM established its own police department in 1992.
John A2
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 5:51 p.m.
WOW, I believe that's far from the issue here. I heard no mention of alcohol, the drug that is the number one killer in car accidents. Please get your facts right for future display. Smoking negatively effects 25% of the people who use tobacco. If I were to condemn anything, it would be alcohol. Marijuana is a natural substance, and placed here by God Almighty himself. Where most all other substance is man made and God didn't intend it to be used by her animals here on earth. We make pollutants and we have to make drugs to counteract the negative consequences of the impact the pollutants have damaged Gods creatures. I say let God be God, and we follow his word...
John A2
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 3:27 p.m.
Any establishment that make rules divided from our human rights here in the United States should not be funded by the US. This is saying that yes we have our rights but we also support dictatorships too. The UofM has the right to change the rules but by doing this they forfeit there 501-C3 status. And give us back all government property they are using. Then they can do what they will with the company.
JRMjr
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 12:36 p.m.
I am quite sure there are alot of rules you support that are curtailments of "human rights." These cancer sticks are also made by massive international conglomerates that target kids and the populations of low income developing nations so when you frame this as an attack on a habit that increases health risks and funds those companies it doesn't seem so offensive does it? As with everything, its just a matter of how you orient the issue. Also... if you want to exercise your basic human right to smoke... walk 10 feet to the nearest public sidewalk. Man, UofM is really crushing the freedom of smoking (?)
Mike D.
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 : 3 a.m.
I must have missed the right to smoke at work in the Constitution. Can you point out where I might find it?
Mike D.
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 3:24 p.m.
This is a simple matter of economics. As people live longer and ever more expensive treatments are available, you either cut health benefits for everyone or you enact policies to make your insured pool healthier and thus reduce costs. The former is reactionary; the latter visionary.
Mike D.
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 11:06 p.m.
A slippery slope toward people being healthy--the horror! If there are other habits that are proven to virtually guarantee the high medical bills associated with smoking, I'd find it hard to fault an employer for trying to curb them. Nothing mentioned above rises to that level. Diet is the closest, and there are employers who require morbidly obese employees to take action to get healthier. Try as I might, I can't muster outrage at this loss of "rights."
John A2
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:08 p.m.
and I say it is one more step to deplete us of our human rights.
Ignatz
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 5:10 p.m.
Mike D., it's a slippery slope once you start enacting rules to "make" people get healthy. Where might it stop? Specially designed diets? Having one's boss tuck one in so you get enough rest? Mandating mental health care? Not allowing staff to drink alcohol?
SonnyDog09
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 3:11 p.m.
Will this rule apply to pipe smoking, tenured professors? Football Coaches? Or does this rule just apply to the "little people?"
John A2
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 3:10 p.m.
This law is another human freedoms that is masked to look like a health issue. This law actually looks to me, like it's a strike to rid the campus of a group of people who are known to smoke more than others like the Homeless. I don't want my tax dollars spent on any establishment that would take away human freedoms. Because of my medical conditions I frequent the ER at UofM, and I see mothers, family, and friends of tragedy victims, but especially the moms. One time a laddie who smoked occasionally was crying so hard she couldn't even see where she was walking. I was standing on the side walk across the street to the ER entrance, when she went to cross the street to come and ask me for a smoke for she could calm down. She almost was hit by a car, then the car started to honk their horn at her because they didn't see her coming. Her son was in the room next to mine in the ER, and her son had been involved in a nasty car accident. Either way it happened and I witnessed this. I then told myself that this law is not healthy. There needs to be some kind of middle ground for this to be good for all. I say they need to be fair to all and to have smoking areas like Salt Lake City. They have places far away from pedestrian paths for smokers. When I am at the hospital and I want to smoke I have to walk to the other side of the street with my hospital garb on, and sometime it's in the winter. I have genetic form of arthritis, a present from my mothers side of the family. It's crippling effects on me, makes great pain for me. I know that smoking around people who don't smoke is invading there rights too, but where is my right to smoke. I feel like I'm on display standing there on the sidewalk at 2 pm or 2 am. I fantasize that the people driving by are laughing at me because I am willing to go the distance to come out and smoke. I should be able to go to an area not to far from the building in the courtyard. I and many others would feel much more comfortable there.
timjbd
Tue, Jun 28, 2011 : 2:31 p.m.
A guy decides to light up next to my kid and it's up to ME to move? This is how cigarettes work- they force the user into rationalizing all sorts of behavior. People who would never think of spraying pesticides all over their lawn with their kids standing in the way fire up cigarettes even while they hold their own kids in their arms. They drive cars with windows rolled up and kids strapped in the back seat as if it's no problem. The tobacco industry has a long list of (once secret) chemicals which they ADD to cigarettes, some of which are there to make people rationalize their behavior this way.
Bear
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:21 p.m.
timjbd, next you will be lauding the virtues of a BO ban. Everyone must smell fragrant and have a suppository in place in case of flatulence. It amazes me how nonsmokers pull the 'foul everybody else's air' card. That argument doesn't hold water. You have the freedom to move a couple of feet away or politely ask that the smoker move downwind. Imagine that!
timjbd
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:18 p.m.
Think how many MORE families have to visit hospital wards because their loved ones are there being treated for smoking-related cancer/emphysema/heart disease, etc. I'm sure they are OK that the smokers have to cross the street. Why do you consider it a "human freedom" to be able to smoke where others have to breathe it when they don't want to? I smoked for quite a few years and many of my friends didn't even know because I would never smoke around anyone who didn't also smoke. It's not that tough. It's the height of social cluelessness to imagine you have some innate right to foul the air of everyone around you. At least oil refineries and coal mines provide power to the masses while they poison their air.
kilroy
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 2:19 p.m.
Good news. Does this mean that the many drivers of University vehicles will have to stop smoking while driving around town in their white vans and pickups?
Sciomanone1
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 1:27 p.m.
It is too bad that the workers for the Medical Center that work at the large building on the corner of Hubbard and Huron Parkway do not have to go by the rules. The communications staff for the Medical Center that work in the building are smoking when other staff members come into work and when they are going home. This is managers in the department and are out smoking 24/7 because the department never does close, they are the operators and paging workers for the Medical center. One of the workers goes out to her Cadilliac to smoke and thinks no one will see her
John A2
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 6:21 p.m.
What does this have to do with the issue?... If some one is playing hooky from work, you can't blame it on what they do while playing hooky. It's been my experience that people who play hooky will keep doing it and will find some other excuse to do so. A substance does not make the addiction. A substance is only a substance. Addiction is in the behavior. The odds are in favor of them finding something else to leave for. Nice try though.
DennisP
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 1 p.m.
As an ex-smoker (quit since 1998) I have to say that this is a good thing. I know it's going to put some employees in conniptions. The thing is though that there are quite a few options to smokers that didn't exist decades ago when the only real way to quit was "cold turkey". When I quit, the patch was a new product. I decided that with the cost of cigarettes back then versus the cost of the patch, I could take the patch for the rest of my life and be better off financially as well as physically--at least no tars and toxic gases. While they recommend against it, my thought was how could it be worse than a cigarette? I also knew the manufacturer studied it's product well before putting it out on the market and developed a quitting system that had the highest chance of success. It's only sensible because they wanted to sell that product and to do so it needed to be successful more often than not. So their interests matched my interest. I did all the things they recommended--even the most trivial and trite--and I followed their regimen. I didn't cut patches in half or do any of the things that others quitters tried to do to "make it easier". I was surprised at how easy it really was to quit in comparison to previous attempts and failures (I had smoked for over 20 years). You approach it from two angles. First, the patch and its gradual reduction in potency provides the chemical means of withdrawal. Follow the regimen recommended and you'll offer yourself the best chance of overcoming physical dependency. Second, AND JUST AS IMPORTANTLY, you MUST change your habits. If you have a smoke first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee, you must not have that cup of coffee. Take a thermos and go for a walk. Or, take some juice and do a chore. This doesn't have to be a permanent lifestyle change, but you MUST put yourself in situations different from those where you always smoked before.
Bear
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 8:16 p.m.
how about the option to continue to smoke in peace without harassment from dolts who think it's their business to dictate other people's lives? How about THAT option for smokers?
Ignatz
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 12:38 p.m.
What an insult to U-M employees. Try to treat your staff like adults who can make an informed choice. I understand that folks don't like walking through a "gauntlet of smoke" when they walk through campus (like holding ones breath is impossible), but smoking out of doors harms nobody with the possible exception of the smoker him/herself. If the U wanted to contribute to the well being of their employees, time would be better spent on providing healthier food options in their buildings or stopping the widespread practice of letting service vehicles idle with nobody in them.
The Black Stallion3
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 11:29 a.m.
I do believe and have heard, that Mary Sue Coleman is a smoker herself....referred to as a ....closet smoker.
MAS
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : noon
Like President Obama.
trespass
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 : 11:20 a.m.
A quarter million dollars spent to move smoking to people's cars and sidewalks. It is mostly about discouraging smokers from even applying for a job at UM. "to try and address our growing commitment that the president (Mary Sue Coleman) articulated in April 2004 to a really healthy campus," Winfield said. (Yet Coleman won't even admit publicly that this is her initiative) Yes and she has to pay back the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for helping her get on the Board of Johnson & Johnson, for which she gets paid more than $240,000 a year.RWJF's other big health initiative is against obesity so watch for more stealth Coleman programs to punish employees for being overweight.