UCL launches smoke-free scheme

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Tharani Ahillan investigates the recent adoption of a smoke-free policy across the UCL campus.

Think of university in London, and chances are that ‘clean air’ aren’t the words that pop into your head. But UCL is aiming to achieve just that with the introduction of its smoke-free policy.

In response to the changing culture around smoking, with 1.8 million fewer adult smokers over the last 8 years according to the NHS, UCL has rolled out a university-wide scheme aimed at promoting a healthier lifestyle among students and staff.

Implemented on the 23rd September, the scheme builds on UCL’s existing policies, which include a ban on smoking, possession of lit cigarettes, cigars or pipes and e-cigarettes in areas occupied by UCL staff, students, and visitors, as well as in UCL vehicles. 

The new scheme goes further, extending the area where smoking is prohibited to all of UCL, including outdoor spaces. This means Malet Place, Foster Court, the Main Quad, South Quad, and the Wilkins Terrace are now “smoke-free zones”. It also means that, where smokers were previously allowed to smoke outside of entrances or open windows, they now need to remain five metres away from buildings if they want to light up a cigarette. The policy includes a second element which aims to strengthen existing support for staff and students at UCL who want to quit smoking. 

Richard Jackson, Head of Environmental Sustainability at UCL Estates, who was part of the smoke-free review group, provided an insight into how the policy came about: “Following correspondence from a UCL student to the Provost expressing concern about smoking on campus, a group was assembled to address [these] concerns and steer a review to explore making the UCL campus smoke-free.” He went on to say, “the results of the consultation [in April 2019], including from the website and survey, and the Students’ Union referendum [. . .] indicated support for the policy.” 

Elvire Landstra is a former UCL student who proposed the smoke-free referendum at Students’ Union UCL last year. She explained the reasoning behind it, stating that, “many students, particularly those from vulnerable groups, such as [those with] chronic illnesses, did not feel comfortable outside”. She added that UCL should be “a space that everyone [can] enjoy” and that “UCL should protect students from the damage of second and third-hand smoking”. In doing this, there is the added benefit that “UCL speaks out against the tobacco industry, which is [...] purposefully keeping people addicted”. 

Professor Graham Hart, Dean of UCL Population Health Sciences, and senior academic sponsor for the smoke-free review, backed this up, stating: “Many in our community felt that we should be doing more to protect staff and students from the harms of smoking”. 

However, opinions throughout the university appear to be mixed. A few agree with the reasoning behind the motion. “It’s great – universities like King’s College London already do the same, so this is long overdue [. . .] I think it needs to go even further – there should be more publicity than just stickers on the floor”, said Oriana Lee, a fourth-year medical student. Chris Hammond, who recently graduated from the Computer Science MEng, agreed: “As an asthmatic non-smoker walking across campus, I don’t want to breathe other people’s foul-smelling smoke. For four years I’d end up coughing because of it.”

However, one fifth-year UCL medical student questioned how effective the scheme will prove to be: “From a smoker’s perspective, these policies don’t deter you much [...] When you’re a smoker you always expect to be told off a bit, it’s just part of the deal.” On UCLove, UCL’s anonymous confession Facebook page, another remarked: “London’s pollution levels will kill [you], not an individual smoker[’]s exhale of smoke”. 

There is also the question of how easily it can be implemented. As Pedro Couto, a Biochemical Engineering PhD student, commented: “What if non-UCL students or random people smoke in front of the buildings on the streets of London, what are they going to do about it then?” 

Dimitris Dimitropoulous, a second-year Law student agreed: “The majority of smoking bans have been enacted [because the government] have the legal authority to enact such matters, [but] the proposed area is a distance way too large to argue that UCL has authority over it.” The proposed distance that smokers could light cigarettes from building entrances was reduced from twenty metres to five metres following a meeting with Union representatives, according to Jackson.

Debate has also emerged surrounding a ban of vaping as part of the scheme. Jackson admitted that “there was some concern about the inclusion of vaping” in the consultation on the policy.

Others are concerned it might ostracise students who are smoking, including a fifth-year medical student who claims that the scheme “just exacerbates this cycle of shame that [smokers] feel about the fact that they smoke”. A scan of UCLove shows that this is a frequently-cited concern among students. Those addicted to cigarettes “are now outcasts from a society that allowed tobacco to be so easily accessible and so socially acceptable for the better part of 700 years”, commented one user. One former student asked: “Why not just give smokers a designated smoking area in parts of the campus?”

“Of course no one blames smokers for smoking, but non-smokers should not have to feel detrimental effects from their addiction,” answered Landstra in response to these criticisms.

Debate has been heightened by the revelation that the Students’ Union referendum was passed without enough votes: 894 out of 1409 people voted to support the plan to prohibit smoking from all UCL premises. Despite fewer than five percent of students voting (the number needed to make the vote binding), UCL took the result as an indication of student opinion and continued with their plans to introduce the change. This does raise the question of how much support there is for this policy amongst the staff and students at UCL.

UCL hopes to mirror similar public health policies and emulate the success of other smoking bans – which have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of smokers – to reduce the effects of smoking at the university. Whether the policy can do that, without ostracising some of its own population, remains to be seen.