TU Smoking Ban May Cut Cigarette Use

Several times a day, Benjamin Ladny walks about 100 yards from his Towson University dorm room to the sidewalk along York Road. Not to catch a bus or to get some exercise, but to have a smoke.

A new university smoking ban forces students like Ladny, a junior from Annapolis, to light up off campus. The rules prohibit smoking anywhere on Towson University.  

Ladny was initially worried the ban would be a major inconvenience. But it's the inconvenience that might end up helping him kick the habit.

"I've been smoking two packs a day for like the past month [before returning to classes]," Ladny said.

But since he has returned to school he has been smoking closer to only eight cigarettes a day.

"I just don't feel like walking out of my dorm all the way out here," he said.

The ban, approved in November 2009, went into effect on Aug. 1 and bans smoking on all university-owned or operated property. Earlier policies prohibited smoking within 30 feet of building entrances, a rule often ignored by students.

Towson is not the first school in Maryland to enact such a ban. Montgomery College in Montgomery County prohibited smoking in 2008.

Students and staff caught smoking on campus can receive a warning or be fined $75. Non-affiliates who continue to smoke following a warning may be kicked off campus. But Deb Moriarty, the university's vice president of student affairs and one of the administrators behind the new policy, said it hasn't come to that yet.

"It's been largely just about educating people," Moriarty said.

The university has charged two employees to roam the campus to spot smokers and advise them to move off the property.

Similar smoking bans have already been in place at other Towson institutions, including Sheppard Pratt, Greater Baltimore Medical Center and St. Joseph Medical Center. All institutions offer stop-smoking programs and medication to employees, and the university is doing the same for its employees and students.

Ladny, however, isn't quite sure if he'll make it that far.

"I'll definitely cut down," he said. "I'm not sure if I'll quit."