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| Senate Presented With Butts To Prove Point | ||||||
| Have you ever noticed cigarette butts littering the ground all around campus?� Despite the adverse health effects of smoking, numerous Cal State Long Beach students still feel the need to get their nicotine intake, and when they are finished smoking that cigarette, more often than not the cigarette butt goes right on the ground. �Campuses Organized & United for Good Health, or COUGH for short, is trying to make a difference in not only improving this phenomenon but also campus health overall. | ||||||
| COUGH, in its presentation to the A.S. Senate on Wednesday, brought five empty water bottles filled with cigarette butts, butts that they picked up in a one hour span last month on campus. �The bottles contained an approximate 5,200 cigarette butts in all. | ||||||
| According to COUGH, "As of January 1, 2004, all campuses must comply with AB 846," a bill that requires posted signs marking 20-foot no-smoking zones, "at an entrance, exit or window of a public building owned by the state, county or city."� While the group has "no intention of alienating smokers," it still seeks to increase awareness of the policy among smokers and hopes that the signs will reduce the effects of secondhand smoke on non-smokers. | ||||||
| Navneet Jammu, a graduate student from Health and Human Services and member of COUGH, added that cigarette butts take "up to 25 years to decompose," and release chemicals from filters into the soil and waterways. �Donna Sze, Manohar Sukumar, and Claire Garrido-Ortega, all from COUGH, plan on distributing letters petitioning the campus to comply with the law, "and make environment conducive to health and academics." �Over time, COUGH seeks to make California colleges "100 percent smoke-free." | ||||||
| In other news, Pamela Ashe, Counseling and Psychological Services staff psychologist, and Brett Robertson, program coordinator for the Safe Zone program, presented to the Senate their plan for establishing a "university-wide network of easily visible allies who can provide support, information, and assistance to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at CSULB." �Faculty and campus officials who complete training for the Safe Zone will receive a sticker that they can place on their door, letting students know that they are supportive and knowledgeable about LGBT issues. | ||||||
| "In about four years," Ashe said, "you will probably see decals all over the campus [and all teachers] will have gone through the training." | ||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2004, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||
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