Smoking issues on campus
More stories from Matthew Prandoni
Smoking is banned on the Marshall campus; people are fined when caught.
Many people struggle with quitting smoking, due in part to nicotine, a highly addictive substance found in cigarettes. Cigarettes can contain over 4,000 chemicals.
According to Teresa Mill, regional tobacco coordinator at Cabell Huntington Hospital, nicotine is more addictive than heroin, cocaine and alcohol combined. Nicotine also kills more people than the aforementioned drugs and Mill said those deaths are completely avoidable.
“Most men can quit cold turkey and never pick them back up,” Mill said. “Research shows that for women, they need behavior modifications and support groups along with nicotine therapy.”
The first step to quitting is to be mentally prepared. If you do not set a quit date, you will not be successful Mill said.
Smoking can lead to different lung conditions such as lung cancer, which is the second most prevalent form of cancer.
Smoking was banned on Marshall University’s campus in the summer of 2013. When students are caught smoking on campus, they are fined, but some people who smoke on campus either do not know about the ban or do not care.
An issue some students and faculty have with smoking is secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke is harmful for those around smokers, but not as harmful as actually smoking a cigarette
Smoking on campus brings mixed feelings to some students. While some students said smoking does not bother them, others said they have problems with the habit.
“I don’t like smoking,” said Sarah Schoonover, a sophomore nursing major. “I think it is gross. It’s not a very thoughtful thing to do.”
One student smoker said, “Nobody bothers me about smoking on campus. I did not realize smoking was banned from campus.”
Justin Hurt, international business major, said he quit smoking for health reasons. “I was tired of waking up in the morning with a smoker’s cough,” Hurt said. Hurt was able to quit on his own terms.
Those who want to quit or need help quitting can call 1-800-quit-now for advice and support.
Matthew Prandoni can be contacted at [email protected].
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j • Nov 19, 2015 at 8:55 am
For thse curious about the actual chemical make up of passive smoke here it is and its sure a long way from what the radicals claim!
The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01). – (Excerpted from “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” with permission of the author.)
Feel foolish yet like you’ve been lied to for years by the Government and all those so called do gooder non profits like the ACS ALA AHA…………YA there all in it together leftovers created by th last prohibitionists with big endowments. They changed their names and spent 40 years creating a so called armor shield to the public as good organizations when all along they were fronts for a new rpound of prohibition out taking illegal grants and lobbying for smoking bans everywhere! Paid pharmaceutical shillsiving junk science testimony and payoffs to cities and states to pass smoking bans and buy billions worth of NRT drugs for the quit lines in everystate. Those nicotine replacement therapy drugs all have a 98% failure rate,its nothing but a shrewd business deal for pharma to make money and hate and criminalize smokers,next its the obese folks laws against eating restaraunts andmaybe even child abuse charges for having overweight kids,oh wait the already are doing that!