In December of 2020, President David Anderson ’74 announced that starting on Sept. 1, 2021, the St. Olaf campus would go completely tobacco free. I believe that this new policy is harmful to all Oles because it fosters a community of policing, pushes students to smoke in unsafe settings, and disproportionately affects international students.
Inspired by thousands of other college’s guidelines that have done the same in the last few years, St. Olaf’s policy states that all tobacco and vapes on campus will now be explicitly prohibited. In an email sent to all students, the St. Olaf Tobacco-Free Support Team stated that, “Being a tobacco-free and vape-free campus is a community responsibility. If you see someone using tobacco on campus, we encourage you to use a gentle approach in reminding the individual of this policy.”
Asking us as students to police our peers is damaging and promotes a culture of superiority. This, paired with the fact that smoking is often a cultural practice, could further ostracize international students — a significant portion of cigarette-smoking Oles.
A tobacco-free policy does not stop students from smoking, it just prohibits them being comfortable asking for help, and promotes smoking in secret or behind closed doors. I guess the school would rather increase the risk of a fire and the effects of secondhand smoke from people smoking in their rooms or the woods instead of providing safe, clearly demarcated smoking areas for their students.
The process of quitting nicotine can take months and is a difficult process, not something that can happen with a simple policy change. By implementing this, St. Olaf is leaving smoking students in a tight spot. Not to mention how scary it might feel if you were on a scholarship. How isolating would it be to feel your position at the school is vulnerable because of a habit you are working to stop?
This policy is reminiscent of St. Olaf’s dry campus policy. When students are afraid of the repercussions of drinking, they are more likely to do it in secret and to not ask for help when it is needed. St. Olaf needs to think critically about the ways it can actually care for its students, instead of policing them.
A policy of this kind might be able to work on a campus like Macalester or even Carleton where students have the ability to step off campus onto a public street to smoke. We are so isolated up on the hill that students would have to transport themselves off campus. Did St. Olaf not consider students who don’t have access to transportation?
I am not saying that drinking and tobacco use should be celebrated, but the truth is that people will continue to engage in these behaviors no matter what the policy states. St. Olaf needs to show their students that they care about their well-being — not what a policy might look like to the outside world.
Caroline Peacore ’24 is from
Pasadena. Calif.
Her majors are English and race and ethnic studies.
