McGill could be next smoke-free campus

[Press Association]

McGill University in Montreal is looking to join a growing list of smoke-free campuses in Canada.

The Students’ Society of McGill University will vote Thursday night whether to implement the policy, which could take up to five years to carry out.

Dalhousie University was the first campus to go smoke-free in 2003, Mount Royal and Acadia universities have banned smoking since 2006, Memorial University became smoke free in 2013 and St. Mary’s University has had a smoke-free campus since 2015. Numerous other universities and colleges only allow smoking in designated areas.

David Benrimoh, the senator for medicine at McGill, has been one of the leaders of the initiative after discussing the issue with another student government councillor about the number of smokers in a campus underpass near the library.

“I thought this might be very controversial, especially considering this is Montreal,” Benrimoh told Yahoo Canada News.

Currently, the McGill campus only has a couple of designated non-smoking areas, which aren’t strictly enforced, and otherwise follows the law, which bans smoking within nine metres of an entrance or open window.

After researching campus smoking policies in Canada and internationally, an initial survey was sent out early in 2016 and the results showed strong support for the initiative. Following those results, a campus wide plebiscite, a non-binding referendum, was conducted in March and going smoke free received 73 per cent support.

The proposed policy wouldn’t end smoking on campus immediately, Benrimoh said; it would likely start with creating smoking shelters in designated areas as a transitional step.

“The whole point is they have to be more attractive than the underpass, or equally attractive. If it’s just somewhere out in the elements no one’s going to use them,” he said.

This transition will be combined with increased education and resources for smokers on campus about what the smoking policy will be and providing resources for those who want to quit.

“This is deciding as a community what role we see for smoking on campus and how we as a community want to improve the overall wellness of our student population,” he said.

In the consultations, Benrimoh said the student government council heard from many people with asthma or migraines who are affected each time they walk by someone smoking.

“It’s not fair to have to choose between going to study and risking an asthma attack,” he said. “At the same time we don’t want to stigmatize smokers or make smokers feel like they have less rights than other people.”

If Thursday’s vote passes, the next steps will be to continue consultations with the students and working with the university about the effective next step.

“You absolutely can’t just pass a policy in a vacuum,” he said. “You have to speak to the people who are working there, you have to speak to the students, you have to speak to the staff and you have to ensure that people know what’s coming, when it’s coming, what exactly and clearly the rules are going to be.”